City of Hope Pays $89 Million for 52 Acres in Irvine

City of Hope has paid $88.5 million for 52 acres surrounding its $1 billion cancer center now under construction in Irvine.

The Duarte-based healthcare provider bought the land and the four-story headquarters building for FivePoint Holdings at 2000 FivePoint, in the Great Park Neighborhoods, the Orange County Register reported.

The seller was FivePoint Holdings, a major real estate developer in OC, Los Angeles County and the Bay Area.

The nonprofit cancer research and treatment system is building City of Hope Orange County, a 164,000-square-foot, 73-bed cancer specialty hospital that broke ground last year, after the organization opened its Lennar Foundation Cancer Center off Barranca Parkway.

City of Hope is also developing Hope Plaza, an eight-story, 350,000-square-foot cancer outpatient facility set to open next to the Lennar Center next year, according to the Commercial Observer.

The land deal will connect to City of Hope Orange County’s administrative offices near Barranca and Alton parkways. It doesn’t include some nearby Broadcom buildings.

The purchase will also buttress City of Hope’s move into OC, where it aims to shorten the commute for thousands of cancer patients who now trek to its San Gabriel Valley hospital for treatment.

The Irvine facility, estimated five years ago to cost $1 billion, will be its second comprehensive cancer center in the state, after Duarte. The new hospital is slated to open next year.

City of Hope executives said it doesn’t have immediate plans for its new land and office building, while leases for current tenants will remain in place for the remainder of their terms.

“By acquiring this land, we are securing the future to bring even more of our advanced cancer care, pioneering research and programs and services to the people of Orange County,” Annette Walker, president of City of Hope Orange County, told the Register.

The OC hospital expansion has been in the works for years.

FivePoint Holdings, a spinoff of homebuilder Lennar, is redeveloping the former 4,700-acre Marine Corps Air Base El Toro into the Great Parks Neighborhood.

In 2020, City of Hope paid $108 million to buy 11 acres of its 73-acre commercial component, FivePoint Gateway, according to the Commercial Observer. The purchase includes a 190,000-square-foot building that’s now home to the Lennar outpatient facility.

A year earlier, the hospital system purchased a 12,500-square-foot medical office building in nearby Newport Beach for $14.2 million, a then record in OC for buildings with more than 10,000 square feet, according to CBRE.

— Dana Bartholomew