Regional Renaissance

By CHRISTINE ROUMBOUTS | PUBLIC WORKS MAGAZINE

Web Extra

For a list of the park’s sustainability goals, visit the article links page.

Just as the Great Depression helped complete such famous California parks as Balboa Park in San Diego and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, one of the nation’s largest public projects under way today — the 1,347-acre Orange County Great Park in Irvine — could showcase the achievements of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

According to Economic Research Associates, the park and contiguous residential/commercial developments could create tens of thousands of jobs and generate millions of dollars in tax revenues over the next 12 years. City officials in Irvine, which is developing the Great Park, have applied for millions of dollars in energy, water, and transportation stimulus funds to support the $1.4 billion effort to make a former military base the final link in a chain of open space stretching from the Santa Ana Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

Current city residents won’t pay a dime to build the park because of development fees and tax increment financing. Instead, owners of property to be built in the dedicated redevelopment district will pay for park construction and maintenance through their property taxes.

“Other cities and counties seeking public works projects that could result in substantial economic benefits may want to take a serious look at their own park development,” says Larry Agran, Irvine mayor pro tem and chairman of the Great Park board.

Referred to as the first major metropolitan park of the 21st century by such planning luminaries as the American Society of Landscape Architects, the dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas in Austin, and the president of interdisciplinary landscape, architecture, and urban design firm Sasaki & Associates, the park combines habitat and preservation areas with sustainable recreation, education, and entertainment venues that the park’s designers say are unlike any other city park in the nation. In fact, they’ve planned for operations to ultimately become carbon neutral.

PUBLIC-PRIVATE MOBILIZATION

Recognizing the potential revenue and community-building opportunity inherent in the former 4,700-acre El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, which closed in 1999, Irvine’s city council established the nonprofit Great Park Corp. to seek partners to finance and develop the decommissioned property.

Governed by a nine-member board of five council members and four public members, the corporation oversees design, construction, and maintenance. Its financial plan sets the funding structure for the park’s design, landscaping, and development costs.

Lennar Corp., a public builder and managing partner of the investment consortium Heritage Fields LLC, bought the old military base for $649.5 million at a 2005 online auction. Its former owner, the U.S. Navy, is responsible for mitigating environmental impacts from past operations.

The property was split into two components: Orange County Great Park, the redevelopment’s focal point; and the Great Park Neighborhoods, the contiguous residential and commercial community to be developed by Heritage Fields.

As part of Lennar’s agreement with Irvine, Heritage Fields deeded the park parcel, valued at $249 million, to the city at no cost. The company has paid half of the $401 million it agreed to pay for the park’s infrastructure and other development; to raise the rest it will help create the Mello-Roos Community Facilities District, which — through special tax assessments paid by in-district property owners — will provide funding for public infrastructure and facilities such as roads, parks, and schools.

Construction on 500 acres within the park’s western sphere is estimated to cost $61.16 million and should begin this year: eight tournament- level soccer fields in a sports park; a 125-acre working farm; event lawns and picnic meadows; a performance bowl; a 20-acre lake; and 7.3 miles of walking and bicycle paths.

A portion of the park is already open to the public. The Great Park Balloon, which takes visitors 400 feet aloft for a bird’s-eye view of the park, opened July 2007 and the balloon’s surrounding Preview Park opened July 2008. An extension to the preview park was completed July 2009.

Designers met with residents, community leaders, veterans, environmental organizations, and artists while creating the master plan. “Their ideas about such features as the sports park, amphitheater, Great Lawn, trails, and botanical gardens will bring people together and fulfill the park’s function as a great social and recreational gathering place,” says lead landscape architect Ken Smith.

PLANNING FOR A CARBON-NEUTRAL FUTURE

After an eight-month international design competition, in 2006 Great Park Corp. selected Smith and his collaborating partners: Mia Lehrer of Mia Lehrer + Associates, Enrique Norton of Ten Arquitectos, Steven Handel of Green Shield Ecology, Buro Happold consulting engineers, Fuscoe Engineering, and construction and design management firm Gafcon. Together they comprise the Great Park Design Studio.

To reach sustainability goals (see Web extra on page 53), the designers established a set of performance standards that will be tracked by indicators in five categories:

• Energy — conservation and onsite generation
• Water — conservation, recycling in natural treatment wetlands, and capturing runoff
• Materials — salvaged, recycled, ecologically engineered, and waste neutral
• Nature — restored native habitats, enhanced biodiversity, and ecological connections
• People — activities and experiences that foster physical and social well-being.

A multifaceted strategy for minimizing the use of fossil fuels by using renewable energy complements the designers’ desire to show visitors sustainable structures, systems, and technologies that will encourage them to change behaviors to preserve the area’s natural beauty.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. When the design doesn’t permit existing structures to remain onsite, timber, concrete and asphalt from 120 buildings and 600 acres of pavement will be reused or recycled at a center next to the park.

Gravel and cobbles will be become infiltration media and roadbed support. Large slabs of concrete will be stacked for retaining walls and waterfalls and laid for trail steps.

Once the park’s built, debris and landscape waste will be recycled onsite.

Water conservation. Southern California is experiencing its third consecutive year of drought, so potable water isn’t an option for watering landscapes.

To minimize irrigation, three-quarters of plants will be native to or compatible with the region’s generally arid conditions. The park’s 20-acre lake will serve as a reservoir, while water from the Irvine Ranch Water District’s groundwater reclamation plant will supplement stream flow. Infiltration zones scattered throughout the park will capture and send runoff to the belowground aquifer to support increased demand for drinking water by future residents and businesses.

All areas with buildings, roads, and other facilities will integrate best-management practices such as porous pavement, structural infiltration devices, and litter and debris entrapment vaults. Natural treatment systems, such as wetlands that may be supplemented with bio-swales, will filter runoff. Structured soil placement will promote aeration/infiltration while confining roots.

Green streets and sustainable travelways. In addition to traffic-calming measures, park designers prepared measures to capture and treat runoff in bio-swales, infiltration/exfiltration trenches, and bottomless catch basins.

Low-reflective and colored paving material will work with trees grouped along roads to provide shade and minimize the heat-island effect in commercial and residential areas.

Although 40 acres of switch grass or other biomass crops will be grown to feed an anaerobic gas digester, the sun will provide most of the development’s onsite power.

More than 1 acre of photovoltaics will cover roof areas to generate 400 kW at peak output, and 15 solar collectors containing 30+-foot-diameter mirror dishes will generate more than 500 kW at peak output. Photovoltaic cells attached to lamp posts will charge batteries that power lights at night.

A small hydrogen fuel cell demonstration will also be installed, most likely in the air control tower that’s still used by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Transportation and trails. The park’s location — next to the Irvine Transportation Center that is served by both Amtrak and the regional Metrolink rail services that go south to San Diego and north to Los Angeles and the rest of California — reduces the need for visitors to drive there.

Once they arrive, an internal transportation system of buses and shuttles using old runways and taxiways will allow visitors to park their vehicles once and get anywhere in the park.

The park knits together existing riding, hiking, and multiuse trails, completing an existing bicycle network within the county that will link residential neighborhoods and business districts to the park.

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