Irvine Spectrum Center Enters Second Phase Today
The Irvine Co.’s successful Irvine Spectrum Center, which already boasts more “bodies per square foot” than any Orange County shopping center, will double in size this month as it opens its second phase.
Modeled after a 13th century-style Spanish castle, the Alhambra will formally open today. About 78% leased, the center’s new section ultimately will include about 45 shops, restaurants and game rooms on a 220,000-square-foot parcel.
The expansion includes Orange County’s first Dave & Buster’s, a 55,000-square-foot restaurant and entertainment center that opened July 16. Other new tenants include The Cheesecake Factory, Brookstone, Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery, Limbo Lounge and Cuban Cigar Factory.
The center’s first phase, which opened in November 1995, already attracts about 5 million visitors a year, more per square foot than any center in the county, said Wally Limburg, owner of Newport Beach-based Strategic Retail Advisors.
The Edwards 21 Cinemas, with its big-screen Imax, is now the nation’s busiest movie theater, said Rick Evans, president of the Irvine Co.’s retail division.
A drawback to the first phase was the shortage of retail options, Limburg said. But the new section will be 25% retail, and phase III--scheduled to begin construction in spring 1999--will be about 90% retail, Evans said.
As a result, Limburg said, Irvine Spectrum should “lead the charge” in the rapidly expanding entertainment-based shopping center niche.
“They have every opportunity to be successful in any regard, whether entertainment, movies, eating or retail,” he said.
