The Irvine Company is a privately held real estate development company based in Newport Beach, Orange County, California. A large portion of its operations are centered in and around the City of Irvine, a planned city of 250,000 people mainly designed by the Irvine Company.

The Irvine Company develops suburban master-planned communities throughout central and southern Orange County. In addition, it owns and manages office buildings in West Los Angeles, San Diego and the Silicon Valley. Donald Bren is its Chairman and sole shareholder.
The 94,000-acre (380 km2) Irvine Ranch, of which the company retains 44,000 acres (180 km2) for development and the remainder as wilderness and recreational preserves, remains its core holding. The Ranch encompasses almost one fifth of Orange County, from the Pacific Ocean and Newport Harbor, Laguna Beach, and Santa Ana Canyon, to the boundary of the Cleveland National Forest.


Under Donald Bren's leadership, the Irvine Company's involvement in and support of the communities it creates continue long after the last family moves into a new neighborhood or the doors open for business in a new retail center.

The company's community commitment is diverse, far-reaching and is guided by a single overriding goal: Improve the quality of lives for all residents. It involves the following:
Working closely with city of Irvine leaders, the Irvine Company provides a comprehensive spectrum of housing for people in all phases of life. This includes collaborating with the city to provide a range of affordable, subsidized housing for the city's lower-income residents.

Even in an affluent area like The Irvine Ranch, there is a considerable need for services to assist individuals and families who sometimes experience difficult times; who, due to job losses and other unexpected life events, find themselves suddenly homeless and struggling financially. That's why for many years Mr. Bren has directed significant company resources toward assisting community organizations that help people in such situations retain their dignity and restore their financial footing and independence. Over the years the company has donated millions to assist these programs. They include, but aren't limited to:

- Families Forward, an Irvine-based organization that provides temporary housing, financial counseling, food and other services to homeless families;

- HomeAid, a non-profit agency created by the Building Industry Association that builds shelters throughout Orange County for temporarily homeless families;

- THINK Together, an innovative non-profit program that provides after-school academic lessons and activities to at-risk children from lower-income families. Supported by a February 2008 commitment of $8.5 million from Mr. Bren and the Irvine Company -- one of the largest gifts ever in California history to an after-school program. THINK Together continues to expand its program throughout the Santa Ana Unified School District and Eastern Los Angeles, one of the largest public school districts in California. Through the gifts (which include a June 2006 gift of $1 million), THINK Together envisions reaching as many as 30,000 underprivileged students across Southern California.
Believing that a well-rounded, quality education is the fundamental building block of a successful community, the Irvine Company and the Donald Bren Foundation have contributed more than $200 million toward public schools and four-year universities. The gifts cover a wide breadth of important programs, events, recognitions and scholarships, from a recent $20 million gift to fund critical enrichment programs, to annual awards programs recognizing outstanding teachers and high school seniors.

While the architectural styles and uses of the Irvine Company's investment properties vary widely from neighborhood to neighborhood and community to community, the one characteristic they all share is quality. The Irvine Company continually reinvests in its properties to ensure they set the standards in their respective industries when it comes to quality. In fact, under Mr. Bren's direction, the company recently completed an unprecedented $240-million initiative to refurbish dozens of its shopping centers, office buildings, apartment communities and resort properties.
The company's commitment to the communities it creates takes other significant forms as well. On a large scale, Mr. Bren is passionate about designing and creating communities that are not only beautiful and highly livable, but also sustainable and sensitive to the magnificent natural resources of The Irvine Ranch.
For many years, as just one example, the Irvine Company has played a major role in collaborative and remarkably successful efforts to protect the area's water quality and conserve water. These efforts have taken many forms, from a decades-long, multi-agency push to restore Upper Newport Bay to its pristine condition, to the extensive use of drip irrigation on crops on the ranch to conserve water and prevent runoff and erosion, to teaming with biologists, scientists and environmentalists on a unique system that will prevent runoff from reaching the sensitive ocean waters near the company's coastal developments.
 
Top