Irvine Co. Was Right: Apartments Hot Again

Orange County’s long moribund apartment market is heating up. Industry watchers say that the lack of new apartment construction in recent years has combined with an employment spurt that is creating a demand for rental housing.

The Irvine Co., seldom one to miss a trend, created its publicly traded Irvine Apartment Communities real estate investment trust almost three years ago in order to take advantage of the apartment boom.

The company plans to build an average of 1,000 new apartments a year for the next five years. It has built and opened five complexes with a total of 2,200 apartments since it started construction in 1994.

Last month, IAC opened a 221-unit “family style” complex--apartments with back yards--in Irvine as well as the first new apartment community that Newport Beach has had in more than a decade. The company has a second luxury complex under construction in Newport Beach, at Newport Center, and will break ground later this year on a complex in Irvine and another in Tustin. Together, the five projects represent an additional 1,200 units.

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John O’Dell can be reached at (714) 966-5831 and at john.odell@latimes.com