Irvine Co. proposes 800 new luxury apartments at Fashion Island

Developers want to build as many as 800 new market-rate apartments at Fashion Island, according to initial proposals submitted to Newport Beach planning officials earlier this year.

The new residential units would be part of two projects proposed by Irvine Co. in letters submitted to Newport Beach’s Community Development Department in September. The Planning Commission may consider the plans for possible recommendation to the City Council as early as the first quarter of 2025, a company representative said in an email Thursday.

“Both communities would provide quality housing to meet the needs of employees, including young professionals, of the hundreds of businesses within Newport Center,” Kevin Martin, Irvine Co.’s vice president of development, wrote in a letter to planning officials.

The larger of the two projects would replace over 141,000 square feet of office space at 100-190 Newport Center Drive with 600 luxury homes. Those would be contained in four podium-style buildings with five stories each. The new housing complex would feature two levels of underground parking and a fitness area. It would also offer convenient access to restaurants and other amenities.

The proposed structures on Newport Center Drive would rise to about 75 feet, exceeding a 50-foot height limit the proposed site is currently zoned for. Developers would need to request an exception from the city in order to move forward.

The other project up for consideration in the area would be an extension of the existing Villas of Fashion Island community, which currently includes 524 units. Crews would demolish an unused parking structure at 800 San Clemente Drive to make room for 200 additional apartments.

An Irvine Co. representative reiterated Thursday that city officials were in the earliest phases of considering both plans. If approved, it was unclear how much the projects would cost or how long they might take to build.

The real estate development company headquartered in Newport Beach planned on making all 800 units of housing available at market rates, with none set aside for low-income tenants at either development. Rent at apartments with between one to three bedrooms at Villas of Fashion Island ranged from $5,100 to $8,300, according to the company’s website.

Newport Beach officials planned to allow for the addition of as many 2,439 new units of housing in the Newport Center area, according to the city’s housing element. The document lays out how the city aims to reach state mandates to drastically plan for an increase of homes by 2029.

State officials had called on the city to plan for an additional 4,485 homes in the most recent Regional Housing Needs Assessment. A certain portion of those are supposed to be allocated for low-income and very low-income tenants.

But identifying suitable sites and developers willing to take on more units of affordable housing in Newport Beach’s lucrative coastal real estate market poses a challenge, according to city officials. In order to compensate for that, the housing element plans for 8,175 new homes, far exceeding the RHNA requirement and allowing for significantly more market-rate units.