Great Park or Great Mess?

irvine123_IHB

irvine123_IHB

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<p>"In Irvine, city officials have said that Lennar has not yet begun negotiations on plans to add nearly 5,900 homes to its Great Park development, partly due to a failure to resolve planning, transportation and other issues." </p>

<p>"Lennar ... is evaluating when to launch construction of more than 3,500 dwellings in Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle and may decide to postpone some projects until market conditions improve. ...Anaheim’s planning director says Lennar postponed filing final site plans and building permit applications for nine to 12 months..."</p>

<p>I guess we won't see any house being built at the great park site for a while...Lennar probably way over paid for the land there too. </p>

<p>BK, what is the chance Lennar walking away from the land?</p>
 
<p>They have so much invested in the area. . .IC will go crazy if Lennar walks away.</p>

<p>There is of course the balloon. Such a great use of money.</p>
 
<p><em>>>BK, what is the chance Lennar walking away from the land?</em></p>

<p>I suspect that IR is in a better position to answer that question, as well as discussing the fall-out if they do.</p>
 
<p>What I find funny is how Lennar hasn't been talking to the city. I picture that FedEx commercial with the guy faking that he is really busy with the phone ringing he says "I can't get that. I'm in the zone here." They are in the WTF do we do now that we overpaid for that land zone right now.</p>

<p>Can or will they walk away? Check out their numbers this quarter. They may not have any other choice. Laing homes probably has the city of Irvine as #1 on their speed dial right now. Got cash? </p>
 
I guess it depends on how you define "walk away." They have an enormously inflated land basis because they overpaid at peak pricing. They will likely take some major "impairment" charges against the property. Ultimately, they can either build it out or sell it at a huge loss to another builder. They really wanted to be in this market, so they may just grit their teeth and bear it (pun intended.)





I suspect the city could care less. They already got paid millions by Lennar for various fees.
 
I thought Lennar scored a pretty sweet deal for the whole marine base. According to this <a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=65842&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=676103&highlight=">press release,</a> they bought 3,700 acres for $650 million.
 
"I thought Lennar scored a pretty sweet deal for the whole marine base."





The number of acres is not nearly as important as the number of units. At 3,400 units, they have almost $200,000 per unit in land cost. Check out <strong> <a title="Permanent Link to Land Value 101" rel="bookmark" linkindex="6" set="yes" href="http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/2007/07/16/land-value-101/">Land Value 101</a>. </strong>If the prices of houses in Irvine drop 50%, the value of this land will drop to $65,000,000. Ouch!
 
<p>There's also an issue with a proposed mass-transit system that's supposed to run from the great park to the spectrum and the irvine train station. Plenty of arguing back and forth about its viability (<a href="http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1759162.php">http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1759162.php</a>) opinion here: http://orangepunch.freedomblogging.com/2007/07/10/centerline-redux-why-not-just-burn-money/</p>

<p>I was talking to a transportation engineer the other day who was telling me about some of the ridiculous things that have gone on with mass-transit ideas in OC in the past - bottom line is, unless you build the infastructure for the mass transit before you develop the land, you're going to have problems, because you will need to disrupt what's already in place (e.g. rip up roads and re-route already busy intersections), and this could lead to worse congestion that could outweigh the benefits of people riding the rails. </p>

<p>He was telling me about one proposal that actually was being considered at one point where the estimated benefits of having mass transit were proven to be overshadowed by the problems building it would have caused. This is because the transit system would have strained a number of important street intersections and made for worse traffic. So, in essence, the net result of spending all the money for mass transit would have been a negative impact on traffic, not a positive one. To correct this, some ppl proposed improvements to the streets that would cost however many millions of $ to offset the predicted problems adding the rail would cause.</p>

<p>So, in essence, here was the proposal: Spend many millions of $ to build rail. Then spend many, many more millions of $ to improve roads enough to return congestion levels to what they were <em>before</em> the light rail was in place. You can't make this stuff up.</p>
 
<p>Liberals never seem to have met a mass-transit system they didn't like. Hell, you could propose a monorail that runs from Ladera to Coto and people would line-up to try to make a case for it.</p>

<p>I'll put my peak oil doom-and-gloom creds up against anyone, but that doesn't mean I'm going to turn off my brain when confronted with a low-energy but questionable transit system. Airport to Great Park? What the hell is that going to accomplish? Is the Great Park so damn great that people will fly-in for it? Come on, liberals... Try Santa Ana to Coto so the household help can get around.</p>
 
Color me liberal...





But I just had to say I took a business trip to Chicago a couple of years ago and fell in love with their mass transit. It totally rocked.





I heard a rumor that Henry Ford bought up and destroyed a lot of the rail in Orange County in the early part of last century. Not sure if that's true or not.
 
Once upon a time So Cal had a wonderful light rail system. I can recall being very young and taking the Red Car trolly with my parents all over the place. I remember something about the tire and car companies convincing the cities that Buses would be more effecient. Hell yes when gas was .20 a gallon. Another good idea that got away. Too bad we ripped up all that track and right of way.
 
jw, I love the El and the Metra, too. OC is not Chicagoland, and what they're proposing is not comparable to either. The El runs around a <em>true</em> urban core, the Metra gets you to it. This Irvine steetcar buffoonery does neither.
 
Yeah, agreed.





At this point I don't know how practical it is to lay sufficient light rail. Seems like all the land that would be required has been bought up.





I hear the BART in the bay area is good too but I haven't ever used it.
 
<p>BART is pretty cool (getting a little old though). I would rather have a rail system that would connect me to LA and/or SD with stops at the major airports (LAX and SNA). I want that high speed train to SF as well (2.5 hrs to S.F., 15 minutes from Anaheim to LA.)</p>

<p> </p>
 
<p>Back on the original topic.. . here is a recent LA Times article about Lennar in SoCal.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-lennar22sep22,1,3560048,full.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california&ctrack=1&cset=true">www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-lennar22sep22,1,3560048,full.story</a></p>

<p>OC Reg states that Lennar is pushing the Great Park back 6 months to sometime in 2009.</p>
 
<p>There was an article on the high speed train in the OCR a while back. The article made it seem if it was going to become a reality.</p>

<p>BART is ok. It is not as good as the L in Chicago. Some of the downside of BART is it doesn't go to enough locations, it isn't 24 hours and when they go on strike it is chaos. The bus system makes up for the lack of locations but when I lived there the muni was very unreliable when it came to being on time. But you could live in the East Bay, hop on bart, catch the Gerry St. muni and be at the beach in a hour. At the time it would have cost $7 round trip. I haven't taken the bus in OC since I was a kid to go surfing when we couldn't convince our parents to drop us off and pick us up. </p>

<p>A light rail has been discussed for years here. There was plans for a train that would run along the 55, then Red Hill and then another one on Jamboree. Still waiting. NIMBY's here always shut it down. I yell, I scream and swear at the OCR everytime I read that it is shut down. </p>

<p>There was a very large rail system here at one time. That was the transportation of choice when OC produced oil and produce products. In Villa Park there was a warehouse for the orchards and the train ran right by it. I remember the train tracks at Wanda and Santiago. Now it is an ugly gated community of tract homes. </p>
 
<p>I hate to sound pessimistic, but when it comes to viable mass-transit on a large scale, I think OC has largely screwed itself. The land use patterns are all wrong and I don't see them changing today nor 40 years from now in a manner that would make it work. Increased density helps but what OC is doing amounts to pockets of high density scattered around like paint splatter.</p>

<p>Peak oil is bringing closure to the American car culture as it exists today and OC is going to get "hammered" Thornburg-style. PHEV's and EV's will only go so far with a heavily burdened power infrastructure. The last 150 years has been a time-of-plenty and has permitted world population to swell from 1.2B to 6.5B. This aberration cannot and will not continue. Reality doesn't give a crap about our Lake Wobegon aspirations.</p>

<p>Enjoy your park.</p>
 
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