Donald Bren

Donald Bren has been running The Irvine Company for 45 years. He currently boasts a net worth of about $16.2 billion, according to Forbes, making him America’s richest real estate baron.

He leads a firm that operates more space than any other company in Orange County, Calif. — the sixth-largest county in the United States. Irvine Company’s history goes back to the Civil War era with the development of Irvine Ranch, totaling 120,000 acres. The company eventually grew and developed Irvine, Calif., a master-planned city that bears the company’s name, and the Newport Coast.

Bren, who started building homes in Southern California in 1958, acquired The Irvine Company in 1977.

His firm now owns more than 127 million square feet of real estate, mostly in Southern California and Silicon Valley, including hundreds of multifamily complexes, about 560 office buildings, and dozens of retail centers, hotels and golf courses.

In April, Amazon announced plans to add more than 800 jobs over the next few years in Irvine. Amazon signed a lease for 116,000 square feet at Irvine Company’s Spectrum Terrace and plans to move in later this year.

In the same month, prominent law firm Miller Barondess signed a long-term lease to move its office down the street into 33,099 square feet at Irvine Company’s Fox Plaza in Century City, the top office market in Los Angeles County.

Irvine Company is based in Newport Beach. Most of the company’s portfolio is in Southern California and Silicon Valley, but the firm also owns almost 100 percent of the 3.1 million-square-foot MetLife Building at 200 Park Avenue in Manhattan. Last October, accounting firm BDO USA took 145,000 square feet at the 58-story building, and in 2020, during the thick of a coronavirus summer, CBRE expanded its New York headquarters at 200 Park by 44,000 square feet, bringing the total commitment to 215,000 square feet.