New trails are open at the Orange County Great Park? High five!
To celebrate reaching a milestone or finishing a big project, some people high-five each other.
That familiar airborne hand slap is how hundreds of visitors to the Orange County Great Park in Irvine commemorated the opening of new walking and biking trails on Saturday, June 15.
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Event organizers were hoping to get at least 3,500 people to participate in a high-five chain. The Guinness World Record is 3,473 high-fivers.
The new trails meander the nearly 1.5-mile length of the Bosque and Upper Bee green areas on the north edge of the 688-acre park, and are landscaped with native plants and designed for a bike ride, jog or casual stroll.
Three tunnels save trail users from having to cross streets that cut through the park, and scattered along the paths people will find shady spots, benches, restrooms and water fountains and a kids’ play area.
Emile Haddad, CEO of Great Park developer FivePoint Holdings, said the Bosque and Upper Bee add another dimension to the park, which already includes a major multi-sport complex of soccer and baseball fields and tennis courts, a large ice rink and a demonstration farm.
The goal of the new trails and the overall park – which is about 150 acres shy of New York’s iconic Central Park – is to create places for people to interact with each other and with nature, Haddad said.
So why the high-fives?
“It’s about the moment in time when people feel they’ve accomplished something,” he said.
So far FivePoint has spent or pledged a total of $250 million to Great Park amenities, which Haddad said exceeds its promise to the city to spend about $172 million.
FivePoint’s interest in building an expansive, impressive park is tied to the roughly 4,000 existing homes and about 6,000 more the company’s affiliate, Heritage Fields, is allowed to build. Haddad wants the company to be known for high-end amenities that make Irvine a desirable place to live.
“That’s sort of like the return on the investment,” he said. “We see that people are willing to pay a premium to be part of that.”
The Bosque and Upper Bee are ready for visitors, but there’s still work to be done elsewhere in the park.
If the city sticks with earlier plans for a golf course, FivePoint will develop it. The company is also working on a corridor to allow wildlife to move between nature preserves.
Also being considered or in the works are a children’s museum, facilities for swimming, basketball and volleyball, and a new Wild Rivers water park.