IRA Capital more than doubles its investment in three years after navigating entitlement process to rezone former office park for 426-home community
A joint venture between TPG Angelo Gordon and Essential Housing Asset Management, a captive investment arm closely affiliated with Lennar, has acquired a 24-acre office campus in Irvine’s Irvine Business Complex for $232.1 million, according to public documents reviewed by The Registry. The deal, which closed on January 30, marks one of the largest land transactions in recent Orange County history and signals a decisive shift from commercial to residential use for one of the IBC’s most prominent sites.
The seller, IRA Capital, a locally based private equity firm, purchased the nine-building campus known as the Von Karman Creative Campus for approximately $102.4 million in January 2023. The sale represents a return of more than 126 percent on IRA Capital’s original investment in just three years, a windfall driven almost entirely by the firm’s successful effort to secure residential entitlements for the property.
The $232 million price translates to roughly $9.6 million per acre, a staggering premium over typical land values in the area. Industrial land in the IBC and surrounding submarkets generally trades in the range of $4 million to $5 million per acre, according to some estimates. The premium reflects the site’s entitled status for high-density residential development, a designation that took years of political negotiation to achieve.
Although the campus still includes 433,000 square feet of office space across nine buildings, the structures are already being demolished. The buyers have no intention of retaining the existing improvements, and demolition crews have been working on the site for weeks.
The proposed development, currently referred to as Von Alton, will replace the office park with 426 for-sale homes. The product mix is expected to include single-family detached residences, duplexes marketed as “duets,” townhomes, and stacked flats. Some estimates project the finished homes could generate between $500 million and $660 million in total sales revenue, a substantial return on the $232 million land basis. As part of the development agreement, the builders will pay approximately $6.7 million in park fees and roughly $7.2 million in affordable housing in-lieu fees to the City of Irvine.
The transaction carries broader significance for the IBC, an area that has been steadily evolving from its industrial and commercial roots into a mixed-use district. The Irvine City Council approved a general plan update in 2024 allowing for an additional 15,000 housing units to be built within the IBC by 2045. Several residential developments already exist in the area, and numerous conversion projects are in various stages of planning and construction. In Orange County more broadly, developers like Irvine Company have been aggressively converting office, warehouse, and retail properties into residential communities, with thousands of apartments under construction or in planning across the county.
The sale’s backstory is rooted in a political standoff between IRA Capital and the City of Irvine. After acquiring the campus in 2023, IRA Capital initially pursued plans to build a 540,000-square-foot logistics warehouse on the site. The proposal drew fierce opposition from the City, which was under pressure from residents and emboldened by California’s Assembly Bill 98, a state law signed by Governor Newsom in September 2024 that imposes mandatory buffer zones and design standards on new warehouse developments near homes, schools, and other sensitive uses. AB 98 took effect on January 1, 2026, establishing new statewide requirements for warehouses of 250,000 square feet or more.
In what amounted to a negotiated compromise, the City and IRA Capital reached an agreement: Irvine would approve a residential rezone for the site if IRA Capital abandoned its warehouse plans. That agreement cleared the way for the Lennar-backed joint venture to step in as buyer.
The deal also reflects the deepening relationship between TPG and Lennar. In January 2026, TPG Real Estate took a majority ownership stake in Quarterra, Lennar’s multifamily development platform, with a $1 billion capital commitment aimed at expanding affordable and attainable rental housing. Essential Housing Asset Management, the other half of the Von Karman joint venture, operates as a land-banking vehicle affiliated with Lennar, acquiring and holding entitled residential parcels on behalf of the homebuilder. The structure allows Lennar to maintain a land-light balance sheet while still controlling development-ready sites.
The property sits at the northwest corner of Von Karman Avenue and Alton Parkway, a high-profile infill location just a few miles from John Wayne Airport and the Tustin Legacy development. The campus was formerly known as the Von Karman Corporate Center and more recently as the Von Karman Creative Campus. Its addresses span 16715 through 16969 Von Karman Avenue and 2121 Alton Parkway.
The Orange County housing market provides a favorable backdrop for the project. In December 2025, Orange County home prices were up 2 percent compared to the prior year, with a median sale price of $1.2 million, according to Redfin. Irvine itself commands some of the county’s highest prices, with the California Association of Realtors reporting a median single-family home price of $1.43 million in the city as of early 2025. However, the for-sale market has shown signs of moderation, with inventory levels rising meaningfully over the past year and homes spending longer on the market than during the pandemic-era frenzy.
On the multifamily side, Northmarq reported in its Q4 2025 Orange County market report that vacancy remained stable through the year and that a spike in deliveries is expected in early 2026, potentially pushing annual completions to a cyclical high. The Von Alton project, with its emphasis on for-sale product rather than rentals, positions Lennar to capture demand from buyers seeking ownership in a supply-constrained market.
For IRA Capital, the deal validates a strategy that wagered on the IBC’s residential future at a time when the outcome was far from certain. For Lennar and TPG Angelo Gordon, the $232 million bet represents a conviction that Irvine’s appetite for new housing, even at premium price points, remains durable enough to support a development that could ultimately generate more than half a billion dollars in home sales.
