Irvine Company Plans Homes on Shuttered Amphitheater Site

The Irvine Company plans to build 70 homes on the site of the former Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

The OC-based real estate giant seeks city approvals for the addition of several dozen single-family homes after already building thousands of apartments in the vicinity, the Orange County Register reported.

But the latest plans call for homes to go up on the actual 18-acre venue site. After opening in the early 1980s, for decades the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre ranked among the most well-known outdoor concert venues in Southern California.

The amphitheater had a seating capacity of a little more than 16,000 people. Musical artists as diverse as Snoop Dog, Dierks Bentley, the Doobie Brothers, Journey, Darius Rucker, Def Leppard and Styx played there.

When the theater’s lease ran out, the site closed in 2016 after hosting a farewell performance by Gwen Stefani.

Over the past decade the Irvine Company — which grew out of the old Irvine Ranch and built the master-planned City of Irvine — has developed plenty on the land around the amphitheater site. Those developments include two 1,700-unit apartment complexes, Los Olivos and the Promenade, and around 170 single-family homes.

Approvals for the additional 70 homes the firm is planning might come next year, the Register reported.

Last October, the Irvine City Council approved plans for a new amphitheater in the city at the sprawling Great Park development. Backers of that project, which will have a capacity of 14,000, have praised it as a potential rival to the Hollywood Bowl.

— Trevor Bach