Currently located at the Irvine Auto Center where it has been a tenant since 1985, the auto dealership will be opening at the new site located at 9881 Research Dr. this weekend. Due to space limitations at the old site, Irvine BMW made the switch to ownership in order to facilitate expansion plans for its operations, including new departments and larger parking facilities.

Originally, the Irvine Ranch area owned by the Irvine Company was 120,000 acres from the Pacific Ocean, reaching 22 miles inland and encompassing 200 square miles or one-fourth of Orange County's entire land area. Now the firm owns only approximately 54,000 acres (about one-sixth of the county's total land area), 5,000 acres of which are part of the master-planned business community where BMW is relocating.

"On a yearly basis we sell 50 to 60 acres a year. It's not a primary part of our business," says Larry Williams, VP of the Irvine Company' Commercial Land Sales Division, a part of Irvine Company' Office Properties, which has been selling parcels for 15 years now. "We budget the amount of land we're going to sell every year. It's a balance with the overall development of the area."

The Irvine Company realizes that companies have a choice of where they want to locate, and that some bigger users would prefer to own their facilities and the accompanying real estate, Williams says. The Irvine Company, therefore, either directly sells the land itself or independently brokers it.

Irvine BMW was represented in this transaction by Greg Gill of Newmark of California, with the Irvine Company representing itself.

The land sold through Williams division is a mixed-use parcels, ranging typically from under one acre to more than 35 acres. However, the Irvine Company does require land purchasers to submit architecture and landscaping plans for its approval of all construction done on the Irvine Ranch in order to maintain uniformity and aesthetic integrity, along with protecting property values.