Donald Bren

At 94, Donald Bren is operating on a scale that few American real estate owners can approach.

The Irvine Company chairman controls 129 million square feet of real estate, including more than 590 office buildings, 40 retail centers and, perhaps most important these days, 65,000 apartments across more than 125 communities. That makes Irvine Company California’s largest apartment owner, while Forbes pegs Bren’s fortune at roughly $19.2 billion.

And Bren isn’t running in place. The apartment empire is getting a lot bigger. 

This April alone, Irvine Company delivered three of Orange County’s largest new multifamily communities totaling 2,244 apartments. The deliveries helped push Orange County multifamily construction and absorption higher this year, with countywide occupancy finishing the second quarter above 96 percent, according to Kidder Mathews. 

Irvine Company also has approvals for as many as 1,858 apartments at Discovery Park in the Irvine Spectrum area, while Newport Beach approved a 700-unit redevelopment of MacArthur Court, where the company plans to replace portions of an office campus with housing and retail.

And the next potential megaproject is Oak Park, Irvine Company’s proposed 281-acre redevelopment of Oak Creek Golf Course and adjoining property. It’s slated to become a village with as many as 2,400 homes, parks, trails and an elementary school.

Bren has also been pruning some of his enormous office empire. Irvine Company finished selling its Downtown San Diego towers last year, among some other office assets. But, at the same time, Irvine Company signed 11 million square feet of leases during the 12 months ended June 30 — up nearly 10 percent from the same time last year — leaving its office portfolio 91 percent leased. 

That included 4.4 million square feet of new deals and 6.7 million square feet of renewals, with its 234,800-square-foot Blizzard Entertainment deal among the largest in Orange County. In L.A., Irvine also landed PwC for roughly 150,000 square feet at 2121 Avenue of the Stars, another major endorsement of Century City’s flight-to-quality boom.

Bren remains for more than a half-century perhaps Southern California’s most consequential landlord.