Mark Mueller

Orange County, CA

Community Editor at Orange County Business Journal

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Articles

OC Insider: Coastal Connections

3 weeks ago | ocbj.com | Mark Mueller

Former Newport Beach Mayor Noah Blom hasn’t given up the restaurateur itch, with a long-awaited spot now moving ahead in his hometown, along Coast Highway. Plans for ARC Carne & Cantina this month were filed with the city. The new concept, located at 2902 W. Coast Highway, “brings together classic Latin flavors, Argentinian & American-style steaks, all with a classic Spanish flare,” according to a letter sent to the city.
OC Insider: School Ties

1 month ago | ocbj.com | Mark Mueller

SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner, one of the world’s wealthiest people with a fortune estimated close to $15 billion, is boosting his Orange County ties. The German software company (NYSE: SAP) on March 13 announced a $2 million gift to the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences at UCI.
OC Insider: Cool Charges

1 month ago | ocbj.com | Mark Mueller

Delivery vans from Rivian (Nasdaq: RIVN) are getting a little cooler. The Irvine EV maker in 2019 inked a deal with Amazon to make electric-powered vans for the ecommerce giant, with an initial goal of making 100,000 vehicles. Ultimately, about 20,000 van deliveries were made, before an exclusivity agreement ended. Last month, the automaker announced that its “Rivian Commercial Vehicles” would be available for all businesses, for fleets of any size. The cost is about $80,000 per vehicle.
OC Insider: Lido House’s Next Act

1 month ago | ocbj.com | Mark Mueller

Plenty of developers hold blow-out grand opening events. Few do blow-up demolition events as well as Bob Olson. The R.D. Olson Development founder last week marked the beginning of the expansion of Newport Beach’s Lido House with an event highlighted by the demolition of a 1950s era firehouse next door to his 130-room boutique hotel, which opened in 2018 at the site of the former Newport Beach City Hall.
OC Insider: Retail Report

1 month ago | ocbj.com | Mark Mueller

Irvine Spectrum Center is getting bigger as it marks its 30th anniversary. And it’s getting taller. The nearly 1.2-million-square-foot center, which opened in 1995 and last year ranked No. 6 among OC’s largest shopping centers by taxable sales, with $601M in sales (up 5% year over year), has in recent months announced a bevy of new retail and restaurant additions slated for 2025. Notable new additions on tap: a new Rivian showroom, located near the mall’s Cheesecake Factory.
OC Insider: Bad & Good Karma(n)

1 month ago | ocbj.com | Mark Mueller

Last year, the City of Irvine commissioned CBRE to conduct an appraisal of vacant, developable land in the area around John Wayne Airport known as the IBC, or Irvine Business Complex. The brokerage’s value of such property: $4.2M an acre, with industrial development representing the highest and best use for the IBC land. That estimated value was down from an all-time high of $4.7M an acre, set in 2023, according to CBRE.
OC Insider: Newport News

2 months ago | ocbj.com | Mark Mueller

Park Newport, the largest apartment complex in the vicinity of Fashion Island with 1,306 units, is looking to expand, adding another notable proposed housing project to the high-end area of Newport Beach. Developers have proposed building another 360 units to the complex that overlooks the Back Bay, at the intersection of Jamboree Road and San Joaquin Hills Road.
OC Insider: Real Estate Round-Up

2 months ago | ocbj.com | Mark Mueller

Land at Irvine’s Great Park Neighborhoods remains a moneymaker for FivePoint Holdings (NYSE: PPH). The master developer said it recently completed the sale of 372 homesites on 32.2 acres of land it owns at the massive former El Toro Marine base for $309.3M; see page 12 for more. That works out to a sky-high price of $9.6M an acre, and over $800K per homesite. Developable land in Irvine rarely trades for more than $5M an acre, or $500K a homesite.
OC Insider: Reimagining ‘the Zigg’

2 months ago | ocbj.com | Mark Mueller

Local developers Jeff Pintar and Cameron Hildreth are about three months from a deadline to complete the nearly $180M purchase of Laguna Niguel’s famed Ziggurat building – and they aren’t concerned about lining up financing for what’s in line to be one of South OC’s largest development projects in years. “We have solicitations from several [potential] capital partners” and will finalize financing in the next few months, Pintar said last week during a meeting at the Business Journal’s office.