A CITY CENTER BUILT for the
21ST CENTURY

Irvine Spectrum District’s live-work-play environment
is the city’s economic engine and prosperous core

In an era when U.S. cities are adapting to new retail challenges and competing for jobs as if their futures depend on it – because they do – Irvine has a not-so-secret weapon: its sparkling Spectrum District.

One-third of all Fortune 500 firms have offices here, while a thriving retail center attracts 17 million visitors annually – about the same as Disneyland. Upscale apartments and new homes connect to jobs, dining, entertainment and shopping with a vibrant mix of convenience, quality and fun.

The Irvine Spectrum District, known locally as “Spectrum,” is the latest stage in the continual perfection of the Irvine Master Plan: the recognition that this city of villages required an economic engine and cosmopolitan attractions.

“The Spectrum is one of the most successful examples of a mixed-use district that I’ve seen anywhere in the world,” says Nate Cherry, director of urban planning at architecture and design firm Gensler, who credits Irvine Company’s Master Plan for the live-work-play success.

Alan Hess, longtime resident, architect and author, calls the Spectrum “Irvine’s 21st-century update of the traditional downtown.”

THE IRVINE SPECTRUM TOWERS and nearby office campuses are home to 100,000 jobs and 400 technology companies.

“The Spectrum is one of the most successful examples of a mixed-use district that I’ve seen anywhere in the world.”

– Nate Cherry, director of urban planning at Gensler, a global architecture and design firm

An Engine For Growth

INNOVATION OFFICE PARK, opened in 2021, is attracting innovative tech companies. “The sunshine and breeze flow into our office, making collaboration so much easier,” says Cara LaForge of Frost Giant.

“There’s a work-life balance you can have at the Spectrum that’s hard to get anywhere else,” says Marc Bell, CEO of Terran Orbital, the leading manufacturer of small satellites primarily serving the United States defense industry. Bell, who chose Irvine for his company’s offices in 2013, says the district’s amenities strengthen his hand in recruiting new employees, helping his firm grow.

“Everything here is so well-planned that there is literally no commute,” Bell says. “We live, work and dine here, and we hardly ever leave. In my first six months here, I went through only half a tank of gas.”

Positioned in the center of Irvine, in the heart of Orange County, the Spectrum has helped attract more coveted high-tech jobs to the region than anywhere else in North America, according to a recent report from the giant real estate firm CBRE. Employers from tech hubs throughout the country – in a range of industries from finance to computer tech to life sciences – have recognized and appreciated Irvine’s carefully designed advantages.

“Irvine is the new Silicon Valley,” contends Huolin Xin, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at UC Irvine. “If you want to attract talent, this is the place.”

SPECTRUM TERRACE’S design, with indoor-outdoor connectivity, helps companies recruit employees. “In the war for talent, we couldn’t ask for a better place,” says Kenny Reuter, executive chairman of Kajabi.

Top global firms that include BlackBerry, Amazon, and the gaming juggernaut Blizzard Entertainment – famed for inventing World of Warcraft – have long-established footholds here, increasing the attraction for younger companies with big ambitions.

The electric truck maker Rivian moved hundreds of tech jobs from Plymouth, Michigan, to the Spectrum in early 2021, adding to the roughly 1,000 jobs it already had here. Among its reasons, the company has said, are the access to top tech talent and the proximity to the beach.

“We live, work and dine here, and we hardly ever leave. In my first six months here, I went through only half a tank of gas.”

– Marc Bell, CEO of Terran Orbital, the world’s leading manufacturer of nanosatellites

At home in the Spectrum District

“It’s like living in a resort,” is how Rivian engineer Bryan Shamasko describes Promenade Village Apartments, where he enjoys four saltwater pools and a dog park for his best friend Nash. His brief commute also gives him and his girlfriend time to catch a sunset at the beach or explore open-space trails right outside their front door..

One of Rivian’s many happy recruits is Bryan Shamasko, an engineer who was attracted both by the company’s innovative green brand and the perks of living at the Spectrum.

His brief commute to work – cut in half from that of his old job outside Detroit – gives Shamasko, 27, and his girlfriend extra time to catch a sunset at the beach or explore open space via trails that connect to their apartment community’s door and lead all the way to the Pacific Ocean. At home at Promenade Village Apartments, they can choose between four saltwater pools.

Living in the district also puts you a stroll away from Irvine Spectrum Center, with its dazzling array of dining, entertainment and shopping areas arranged along open-air paseos and courtyards landscaped with date palms, olive trees and Italian cypresses.


Success breeds success

Over the years, the Spectrum Center’s unique energy has helped many of its tenants flourish, in and outside Irvine.

“I WANT THAT LOCATION!” Silvia Sosa recalls her dad, Javier, saying about Spectrum Center as the family made plans to open a second location in 2004. Today, Javier’s is one of OC’s most popular restaurants.

“The Spectrum Center put us on the map,” says Verlie Payne, the owner and chef at Hudsons Cookies. A New York City transplant with a former career selling financial software, Payne opened a store at the center in March 2021 and has been thrilled with the traffic and sales.

“Being at the Spectrum is like being on the 50-yard line,” she says. “There’s nowhere else where you can get this kind of traffic, and people tell us they follow the smell of our baking to our door.”

Payne’s success in Irvine has brought interest from other shopping center owners, and she says she’s now in “several conversations” with them as she plans her next expansion. She joins several other retailers whose Spectrum Center location has boosted their prospects.

PF Chang’s, which now has some 300 restaurants throughout the world, was one of the first restaurants to open at the Spectrum when the center debuted in 1995.

Oakley, which today has nearly 200 stores in the United States and Canada, opened its first brick-and-mortar location at the Spectrum Center in 1999.

The Apple Store, which launched at the center in 2006, relocated and expanded 12 years later into what is now one of the brand’s most stunning locations, with an all-glass exterior facing out on a giant fountain. “That store is pretty much second to none and could only occur at the Spectrum, the way it’s designed with the integration of public space,” Cherry says.

When Javier’s upscale Mexican restaurant opened at the center in 2004, it was only the second of what today are five West Coast restaurants owned by Javier Sosa, a former dishwasher who emigrated from Tijuana at 18. Sosa’s daughter, Silvia, who manages the Spectrum Center restaurant, remembers having lunch at the center with her father in the late 1990s. “Even then, he loved the Spectrum,” she says. “He used to say: I want that location!”

Last year, the restaurant doubled the size of its outdoor patio, where guests can dine surrounded by bird of paradise plants, banana trees and palms.

“It’s all about quality, with a lot of conscious decisions about landscapes and colors that people have spent a lot of time and energy on – and it shows.”

– Nate Cherry, director of urban planning at Gensler, a global architecture and design firm

Don’t call it a mall – the appropriate industry term is a “lifestyle center,” given that Spectrum Center offers so much more than shopping. Green Street Advisors, a real estate firm, ranks the center among a select few similar venues in the country to receive an A-plus-plus rating, based on factors that include merchant success, foot traffic, quality of stores and curb appeal.

“It’s this really carefully curated retail environment,” says Cherry with Gensler. “It’s all about quality, with a lot of conscious decisions about landscapes and colors that people have spent a lot of time and energy on – and it shows.”


‘Unmatched’ energy

Many Irvine residents find Spectrum Center to be the backdrop to their social life, no matter what stage of life they are in.

WESLEY AND CHERESE Burton recently moved into The Village, choosing it for the amenities and access to Spectrum Center. “We tell our friends back home that we are living the California lifestyle.

The array of entertainment options includes the 21-screen Regal Irvine Spectrum, America’s most successful Regal theater, and one of the country’s most successful comedy clubs, the Irvine Improv.

A major draw is the “shoppertainment,” including weekend exercise classes, activities for toddlers, a winter holiday ice-skating rink and an ever-changing cast of musical performers.

Ava August, 16, who has been singing and playing music in public since age 10, remembers her first gig at the center, when she was still in sixth grade.

“It was one of those surreal moments because as I was singing, a huge crowd started to form – like 50 or 60 people – and it just solidified how much I love music,” she says.

Within another year, at 13, August auditioned on “The Voice.” She has since appeared on “American Idol” and before sold-out crowds at Los Angeles Rams, Lakers, Dodgers, Kings and Angels games. But she has also returned to Spectrum Center dozens of times to sing and play ukulele, guitar and piano in the courtyard outside Old Navy.

“On summer nights, the courtyard gets filled with people listening and dancing and crowding around,” August says. “The energy at the Spectrum is just unmatched.”

REGAL completed a major reinvestment in 2020, updating the moviegoing experience – from the grand entrance to the digital lobby to 4K laser projection and luxury seating – including eight VIP theaters.
THE APPLE STORE AT SPECTRUM CENTER is one of the brand’s most stunning. The design and layout “could only occur at the Spectrum, the way it’s designed with the integration of public space,” says Nate Cherry with Gensler.

Spectrum Milestones

1983

Master planning for Irvine Spectrum District begins to take shape as Irvine Company invests $227 million into infrastructure, including storm drains, roads and a freeway cloverleaf.

1989

Western Digital, Mazda, Canon and Toshiba occupy the first office buildings, solidifying the city’s jobs and economic base.

1995

“The Entertainment Center at Irvine Spectrum” opens with 250,000 square feet of dining and entertainment, featuring Edwards Irvine Spectrum 21 IMAX, the world’s first megaplex movie theater with 6,400 seats and 21 screens.

1998

A prominent Wall Street Journal A prominent Wall Street Journal article puts Irvine Specturm Center in the National Spotlight.

2002

The Giant Wheel arrives from Italy and opens. The 108-foot-tall wheel is just the third fixed wheel in Southern California, following those at Santa Monica Pier and Disney’s California Adventure.

2003

The seasonal ice rink debuts and becomes OC’s only outdoor ice-skating rink.

2005

Nordstrom opens during Spectrum Center’s 10th anniversary.

2007

The Village apartments, with its own Starbucks and grocer, opens. It’s the first of six apartment communities within Spectrum, including The Park, Los Olivos, Centerpointe, Westview and Promenade.

2014

The Irvine Improv, one of the most successful comedy clubs in the country, triples its size with a new home across from Regal Irvine Spectrum. Jerry seinfeld and Chris Rock are among the A-listers who have performed here.

2017

Irvine Company completes the world’s first collection of hybrid-electric buildings that now includes 24 high-rises, eight within Spectrum, outfitted with Tesla batteries. The technology can reduce peak energy demand by 25%.

2018

A $200 million reinvestment of Spectrum Center adds 30 new stores and restaurants, including a new glass-walled Apple Store and updated landscaping, courtyards and new seating areas.

2020

Regal theater completes a multimillion dollar remodel that includes a digital lobby experience, luxury recliners in the VIP section and motion-synchronized seats in the 4DX.

2022

Fortune 500 companies continue to expand and open in Irvine as Amazon leases 116,000 square feet at Spectrum Terrace, the brand-new 1.1-million-square-foot office campus.

THE STORY of the
GIANT WHEEL

Today the 10-story Giant Wheel rises above Irvine Spectrum Center as its most recognizable landmark.

But its story begins at the turn of the century when Irvine Company planners began a worldwide search for an illuminated Ferris wheel to entertain guests at the popular outdoor center.

They scouted Ferris wheels throughout America before traveling to Paris and eventually Casale di Scodosia, Italy, (just south of Venice) where they met the manufacturer of a 108-foot Ferris wheel housing 24 Old World Andalusian-inspired gondolas. In the summer of 2002, after traveling three weeks from Italy, the custom-designed and handcrafted Italian Giant Wheel arrived. It took eight weeks to assemble, at the direction of its Italian engineers, and adorn with 12,500 red, white and blue lights.

When it rose into the sky that October, it became just the third large fixed-wheel in Southern California, following those at Santa Monica Pier and Disney’s California Adventure.

In 2015, the original standard light bulbs were replaced with 52,000 energy-efficient LED lights capable of 16 million different color schemes.

And now, the Giant Wheel carries more than 682,000 riders per year up, up and away.

THEN Construction teams used two 14-ton cranes, two 24-foot scissor lifts, one 40-foot-high forklift and an 80-foot boom lift to install the Giant Wheel.
NOW In addition to carrying 682,000 riders each year, the Giant Wheel serves as a gathering spot for families, friends, movies, games and even yoga.