El Toro Base Redevelopment Gets a Timetable

Redevelopment of the closed El Toro Marine base began Friday as officials met to set a rough timetable for the construction of homes, businesses and a vast park on 4,700 acres that Irvine officials have dubbed the Orange County Great Park.

The meeting of the Great Park’s board of directors was the first since last month’s auction of the base by the Navy to homebuilding giant Lennar Corp. -- a purchase that, when completed, will mark the end of more than a decade of attempts to build a commercial airport on the site.

“The psychology and reality of El Toro changed” when Lennar won the bidding at auction, said Larry Agran, Irvine councilman and Great Park board chairman. “All the doubters and the professional pessimists had to acknowledge that Orange County Great Park is going to happen.”

Demolition of El Toro’s runways is expected to start in late summer or early fall. Soon after, Lennar and Irvine will begin work on new infrastructure, including roads and utilities.

Home construction could begin in late 2007, with the first units going on sale the next year, said Bob Santos, a Lennar executive. By 2015, 3,400 homes and 3 million square feet of office and commercial space should be completed on about one-fifth of the former base.

The Great Park’s directors, which include Irvine’s five council members and four appointees, will oversee part of the redevelopment project and manage its 1,100-acre park system. City officials formed the nonprofit corporation in 2003 before annexing the base, saying it would safeguard Irvine against cost overruns and save extra work for city staff.

Lennar, sister company LNR Property Corp., and three Wall Street investment firms joined to bid $649.5 million for 3,700 acres of the base in February. An additional 1,000 acres will continue to be owned by the federal government and set aside for wilderness conservation.

Lennar is expected to close escrow by July.

The city intends to spend $401 million on infrastructure, parks, a golf course and sports fields. Half will come from fees paid by Lennar, half from taxes on future home and business owners.

The Great Park board also voted Friday to begin an international search for a landscape design company.

“This meeting is an important milestone,” Agran said. “We are setting the road map for the journey we are all on.”