Orange County Register

Cal State Fullerton officials had hoped to establish a permanent beachhead at the closed El Toro Marine Air Base, where they set up their Irvine campus.

It doesn’t appear to be happening, though, since their year-to-year lease expires on June 30 and there’s no sign it will be renewed.

Here’s my OC Register story that ran Feb. 3 on this topic

The Register’s Irvine reporter, Sean Emery, says that Lennar Corp., which now owns the site, recently evicted a Montessori school from a nearby site. Makes you wonder what Lennar is planning to put in its “Lifelong Learning” center if all the exisiting learning institutions are gone, doesn’t it? No one from Lennar returned my calls or emails yesterday.

Here’s more background from reporter Sean Emery about the site:

Lennar and city officials in 2005 signed a deal to create the 1,347-acre Great Park, shortly after the developer purchased the bulk of the former El Toro airbase from the federal government.

The plan gave Lennar the right to build residential, commercial, industrial and office space around the Great Park. In return, Lennar donated the land to the city for the public park and agreed to pay $401 million in developer fees. A redevelopment agency and community facilities district were planned to capture millions raised from the increased value generated from new homes.
Like other homebuilders, Lennar Corp. has been hit hard by the real estate crash and credit crunch.

They have responded by scaling back their first phase of construction to focus on the “Lifelong Learning District,” a mix of educational, retail, and eventually residential uses.

The developer has spent the last few months demolishing and removing existing El Toro structures to make way for grading.

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