A Grand Debut
Sep 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Patricia Kirk
A new $300 million, one-million-square-foot regional shopping center opened in August at Tustin Legacy, a 1,600-acre master-planned community at the former Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, Calif.
The District at Tustin Legacy, a joint venture of Phoenix-based Vestar Development Co. and Kimco Realty Corp, a New York-based retail real estate investment trust, includes lifestyle retail and power box components.
The open-air lifestyle component features a mix of upscale shops, restaurants and entertainment venues. The project can also be used to stage community events with its outdoor performing arts stage and two digital video walls. Vestar included its trademark outdoor fireplaces surrounded by comfortable furniture to encourage people to hang out and socialize, says Jeff Axtell, Vestar project manager.
Tustin Legacy is just six miles from the Irvine Spectrum Center, but Axtell contends, “There's enough population growth and disposable income here to support all the retail in the area.”
Nearly 1.5 million permanent residents, with an average household income of $85,000 annually, live within a 10-mile radius of the District at Tustin Legacy. About one million people work in the area.
