Hat tip to the Voice of OC for news the county supervisor John Moorlach wants to move the Orange County Civic Center to Irvine at a location within the Great Park.Â
The moves makes sense on a number of fronts; easy freeway access and a more central location to other parts of Orange County than trying to navigate traffic and parking hassles in downtown Santa Ana. Let’s not forget Irvine’s safest city status and plentiful space.
From the story:Â “Orange County supervisors are busy trying to figure out what to do with a prime 100-acre piece of real estate they acquired from the U.S. Navy when Irvine created the Great Park out of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.
They’ve talked about some mixed-use commercial and residential developments instead of land-banking the property for later generations.
But one of their colleagues, John Moorlach, has a different goal.
“This would make a great civic center,” Moorlach said this week during a public update on the land.
Sounding like a real estate agent, Moorlach ticked off the property’s advantages: freeway and train accessibility and ability to feed off of the Great Park development. “If the Great Park is ever developed, it would be an incredible location,” he said.”
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Constructing a new civic center at the Great Park would create thousands of good paying jobs that would increase the county’s tax base while giving citizens new, well-planned facilities that leverage green/clean technology.Â
Imagine the host of small businesses that would pop up all around Irvine to support the tends of thousands of county employees coming to Irvine each day to work.
We’ll have to see how this idea fits the master plan for the Great Park and the negative impact of all those empty offices in Santa Ana. But what an idea to spur economic development.
Dan, hard to believe you’re pimping a John Moorlach wet dream. This will never happen. In an era where WE HAVE NO MONEY and Moorlach is in the front row of the we’ve got to cut to the bone caucus, he comes up with this boondoggle which will cost a fortune. Wasn’t he satisfied with his nice remodel job on the 5th floor? How many millions will the taxpayers waste on this unnecessary project? Will we get a picture of Moorlach and Agran with their shovels and will Agran break it to Moorlach that its either a PLA or prevailing wage, if he wants to build in the Great Park?
This is another of South County’s attempts to rip off governmental buildings from the center of the county, Santa Ana. They tried to take away the District Court of Appeals but Tom umberg and Miguel Pulido stopped that attempted heist. Now they want to break the bank so they can have a new building, even though the BOS accomlishes litte. It’s an era of limits now.
Oh I don’t think it will ever happen, but Moorlach is Sean Mill’s latest little man crush and the notion that Moorlach would support something that would be financially devastating to Santa Ana makes this news rich with irony. After all, Sean Mill is Santa Ana and Santa Ana is great! And Sean could speak first hand about how nice it is to drive to and work in Irvine.
Yeah, Moorlach would like nothing better than to feel safe driving to work by moving his office to Irvine. I have a better idea. Why don’t we just let the Gang of Five telecommute? That way, we would not have to see them and they wouldn’t have to make that drive into central OC past all those poor people and their other constituents?
I actually like the idea of having the civic center of Orange County moved to Irvine and located in a safe, clean environment.
The issues of traffic, parking, crime, and the constant parade of homeless traffic could stay behind as part of Santa Ana’s legacy.
On the upside, It would give the County the opportunity to actually plan their campus better, and make it more user friendly for the public.
The County operations could be consolidated in new buildings instead of the hodgepodge of random office buildings around the current Santa Ana downtown and up along Main Street.
I’m not liking the price tag that goes with this idea, but there are some pretty compelling reasons to consider it for the future.
Wasn’t even aware that the County owned any of the land at the Great Park. With all the controversy going on regarding the Orange County Fairgrounds, perhaps the County should have proposed to the Governor that they take over the Fair responsibility from the State and move it to the site at the Great Park. They could have partnered with the Great Park Board and built a first class Fairgrounds with a host of amenities including the needed equestrian center. Not only would it have been a great addition to the Park, it would also have provided a much needed long term revenue generator for both the Park and the County.