Developer Will Double Size of Its Irvine Entertainment Center

The Irvine Co. on Monday unveiled plans to double the size of the popular Irvine Entertainment Center, and to eventually tie in the massive complex with a proposed regional shopping mall at the convergence of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways.

Construction on the 250,000- square-foot addition, which would be located adjacent to the 21-screen Edwards Theatres cineplex, is scheduled to begin early in 1997 and be completed in time for the holiday season.

The Irvine Co. had planned to expand the cutting-edge entertainment center during 1998, but the timetable was advanced when retail, entertainment and restaurant tenants reported stronger-than-anticipated sales volume.

“We thought it was going to grow somewhat slower,” said Rick Evans, president of the Irvine Co.’s retail division. “But, in terms of sales volume, we’re at the level we predicted for when the center was five years old.”

Since opening on Nov. 22, 1995, the center has drawn nearly 4 million visitors, according to the Irvine Co. The addition’s architecture will expand upon the existing center’s Moroccan village theme.

The center is dominated by a 21-screen Edwards cineplex with a huge 3-D Imax screen. Newport Beach-based Edwards has described the Irvine cineplex as the highest-grossing theater complex in the West and one of the nation’s three top-grossing cineplexes.

The entertainment center also includes several trendy eateries, a Sega City electronic game center and several retail shops, including a large Barnes & Noble bookstore.

No new movie screens will be added when the center is expanded, and only a handful of new eateries will be added at the center that’s already home to Bertollini’s Trattoria, Champps America, Wolfgang Puck Cafe and P.F. Chang’s China Bistro.

Most of the 250,000-square-foot addition will be filled by “entertainment outlets and retailers who are entertaining and fun,” Evans said. “There are a whole group of those types of retailers out there.”

When the center opened just under a year ago, market research showed that most visitors were coming from Orange County. But this past summer, Evans said, “we found that we’re getting customers from 127 different ZIP Codes, stretching from San Diego to Los Angeles County.”

The Irvine Co. eventually will use the entertainment center as an anchor for a huge regional mall to be built near where Interstates 5 and 405 converge.