Irvine Co. Sets Forth Plans to Boost Retail Building in County

The Irvine Co. unveiled its latest five-year plan for retail development Tuesday, announcing an aggressive strategy to overtake rival C. J. Segerstrom & Sons--owners of South Coast Plaza.

Under its latest projections, the Irvine Co. plans to build 16 new retail projects and make additions to existing centers that would give it a total of 5.9 million square feet of retail space in the county.

By contrast, Segerstrom has 2.9 million square feet of retail space.

The Irvine Co.’s newest five-year scenario leaves intact previously announced plans to build 12 new retail projects and adds four neighborhood centers in Tustin, Laguna Canyon, Irvine and east Orange.

Eight existing centers--including Fashion Island and the Marketplace in Irvine--are slated for expansion and renovation over the next five years.

Under the latest plan, however, two earlier proposed developments have been put on the back burner: Irvine Spectrum I, a 39,000-square-foot food center in Irvine, and a two-acre site in Newport Beach.

The Irvine Co. envisions annual retail sales of about $900 million within the next six to seven years. In comparison, Segerstrom projects its 1987 sales at $750 million.

The Irvine Co.’s latest plans were announced in Las Vegas by Irvine Retail Properties Co., which is trying to drum up tenants at a spring convention of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

A key element of the plan is to focus the proposed growth in and around Irvine, the master-planned community whose 85,000 residents rank among Orange County’s wealthiest. Half of the 16 new retail projects are slated for the Irvine area, which Irvine Co. executives believe is sadly lacking in shopping centers.

After years of confined growth because of conservative policies, Irvine Co. executives have a new outlook. “The object is to create enough breadth of retail opportunity, so (Irvine) citizens are less likely to leave” and go elsewhere to shop, said Greg Stoffel, director of marketing.

Irvine residents currently spend only 22 cents of every retail dollar in that city, according to Stoffel. The rest is spent elsewhere--including, for instance, Costa Mesa, which Stoffel estimates receives at least three times more retail income than Irvine.

But all that could soon change. “By the end of 1988, we’ll have a full range of goods and services available for residents in Irvine, Newport Beach, Tustin and Orange,” predicted Dawn Bouzeos, a company spokeswoman.

The four new neighborhood centers in the Irvine Co.’s five-year plan include a 100,000-square-foot specialty retail and services center, Northwood Knott, in Irvine’s Northwood development, that is scheduled to open in 1990. East Tustin’s Tustin Ranch is slated as the location of a 100,000- to 125,000-square-foot village center with drugstores and a supermarket on Irvine Boulevard and Jamboree Boulevard.

Two centers of at least 100,000 square feet each are planned for the Upper Peters Canyon in east Orange, near the Santiago Hills community, and at Laguna Canyon Village in eastern Laguna Beach.

The Irvine Co. also announced plans to complete renovations totaling “a few million dollars” within two to three years, said David Mudgett, president of Irvine Retail Properties Co. The face lifts are scheduled in the Irvine neighborhood centers of Foodpark, Parkview Center and University Park Center. In Newport Beach, remodeling is planned for the Harbor View Center and the Eastbluff Village Center.