Donald Bren

Donald Bren is chairman of one of the largest private real estate investment companies in the nation, which has a habit of expanding by leaps and bounds, and he is the wealthiest individual on the Power 100 list, and it’s probably not very close.

Irvine Company is among the 20 largest owners of multifamily apartments in the nation, according to data provided by CoStar. The company is also the largest multifamily owner in Southern California, and the owner of the most office space in the Golden State that serves many household-name companies as tenants. The company’s most recent count has the portfolio at 129 million square feet, with more than 590 office buildings, more than 125 apartment communities with more than 65,000 units, and 40 retail centers, along with one coastal resort, three golf courses and five marinas. 

Irvine Company’s portfolio is largely in Orange County, with about 35 percent of the portfolio in Silicon Valley, San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City. Its latest residential projects include a plan for 1,261 homes at an outdoor shopping center in Irvine, Calif.; another plan for 1,180 homes in Orange County; and 4,500 apartments in its namesake city of Irvine. A project that was originally planned to be a 532,000-square-foot life sciences office campus was changed to another plan for a 1,200-unit apartment complex.

Earlier this year, Irvine announced 1.4 million square feet of office leasing activity just in the month of March, which was the most it tallied in one month since before the pandemic. Further, more than 40 companies leased 213,000 square feet in March via Irvine’s flex office platform and provider named Flex+.

Irvine Company finished 2023 with a 91 percent office occupancy rate after securing 9.5 million square feet in office leasing activity involving more than 900 companies, and more than 400 companies leased 1.5 million square feet of flex office space. One of its most notable leases was securing an 11-year extension for MetLife’s headquarters at 200 Park Avenue in New York City, otherwise known as the MetLife Building, which Irvine owns with Tishman Speyer.