The senior living community Coventry Court in Tustin traded hands July 10, selling for $83 million. The seller was Meta Housing Corp. in Los Angeles, and the buyer was Jonathan Rose Cos. in New York. ()

The senior living community Coventry Court in Tustin traded hands July 10, selling for $83 million. The seller was Meta Housing Corp. in Los Angeles, and the buyer was Jonathan Rose Cos. in New York. ()

The senior living community Coventry Court in Tustin traded hands July 10, selling for $83 million. The seller was Meta Housing Corp. in Los Angeles, and the buyer was Jonathan Rose Cos. in New York. (Photo courtesy of Northmarq)

The senior living community Coventry Court in Tustin traded hands July 10, selling for $83 million, according to Northmarq.

The brokerage represented the seller, Meta Housing Corp. in Los Angeles. The buyer was Jonathan Rose Cos. in New York.

The deal closed July 10, Northmarq reps said.

The 55-and-older community in the Tustin Ranch neighborhood has 240 units, with more than half of them income-restricted. Only 87 units at Coventry Court are rented at market rates, according to Northmarq.

The apartments were completed in 2012 and sit not far from the blimp hangar that burned in 2023.

Bustling Fullerton Metrocenter sells for $118.5M

Space Investment Partners recently paid $118.5 million to Kite Realty for Fullerton Metrocenter, a 395,703-square-foot retail center anchored by Sprouts, Petsmart and Target.

The shopping center at 1375 Harbor Blvd. sits on 30 acres with 40 tenants that also include Urban Air Adventure Park.

“Looking ahead, we plan to revamp the center, bringing in new concepts and ensuring it serves the surrounding community as more housing is added,” said Ryan Gallagher, Space IP managing partner and co-founder.

Built in 1988 and updated in 2002, the shopping center will get some immediate improvements including fresh paint, updated signage, new landscaping, and leasing efforts “focused on attracting new food and fitness tenants,” according to the company.

Eastdil Secured represented the seller in the transaction.

Fullerton apartments fetch $4.1 million

A nine-unit apartment property in Fullerton sold June 13 for $4.1 million or $455,555 per unit, according to Marcus & Millichap.

Greg Bassirpou at Marcus & Millichap pointed out the small complex is minutes from Cal State Fullerton and retail centers, making it an attractive option for investors.

Bassirpou did not identify the buyer or sellers.

The property at 3169-3175 Quartz Lane includes one two-bedroom, two-bathroom townhome and eight two-bedroom, one-bathroom units in 9,831 square feet.

Amenities include a landscaped courtyard, patios, enclosed garages and on-site laundry rooms.

Bassirpou said the sellers made “extensive interior and exterior renovations to the property.”

CapRock goes big in Houston

Newport Beach-based CapRock Partners recently acquired a 524,199-square-foot, Class A industrial facility in Houston for undisclosed terms.

The fully leased Kennedy Greens Distribution Center was CapRock’s first buy in the Houston marketplace as it expands across Texas.

Built in 2020, the distribution center sits on 29 acres less than 3 miles from George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

“Houston’s industrial market continues to demonstrate strength, driven by durable demand, land constraints and a diversified economy,” Jon Pharris, co-founder and president of CapRock Partners, said in a statement.

Gantry moves mortgage team to Atrium in Irvine

Fresh off it’s deal to acquire Irvine-based Westcap, Gantry has relocated its now larger team to the Atrium office campus in Irvine.

The firm, which moved from Suite 285 at 19600 Fairchild Road in Irvine, now works from 19100-19200 Von Karman. The office complex includes an open air, 10-story lobby connecting two, 10-story office towers in 334,828 square feet.

Gantry’s new office space houses the firm’s commercial mortgage loan producers and corporate marketing staff.

Gantry Principal Andy Bratt said the firm’s operations “grew significantly” in 2024 after buying Westcap and its $3.2 billion loan servicing portfolio last December. The shift to a larger space will help integrate Westcap’s loan production staff with Gantry’s team.

Stream Realty Partners represented both sides of the five-year lease for 5,000 square feet.

The real estate roundup is compiled from news releases and written by Business Editor Samantha Gowen. Submit items and high-resolution photos via email to  sgowen@scng.com . Please allow at least a week for publication. All items are subject to editing for clarity and length.

On Thursday, July 17, the Irvine-based chain introduced Sweet Chipotle BBQ sauce. It’s made with peppers, molasses and spices, according to a news release.

It can be ordered in a Sweet Chipotle BBQ Crispy Chicken Burrito for about $5.79, a Sweet Chipotle BBQ Crispy Chicken Taco for about $3.19, or as an add-on in a cup for 30 cents.

For now it’s available for a limited time, but Taco Bell has announced its intention to make crispy chicken a permanent part of its menu in 2026.

ALSO SEE: Taco Bell is bringing Live Más Café to Orange and Irvine

There’s always more on the way with Taco Bell. Beginning July 31, Taco Bell will be selling Dulce de Leche Cinnabon Delights for a limited time.

And the chain is testing a Tajín Taco with seasoned beef in Columbus, Ohio, and a new value menu in Indianapolis. It has five items, including a Mini Taco Salad.

Information: tacobell.com

The automaker recently filed a notice with California’s Employment Development Department indicating layoffs might take place as it runs out the lease at 3 Glen Bell Way, the studio’s longtime home off the 5 freeway at Irvine Spectrum Center.

The facility’s closure was mentioned in the EDD filing, which is part of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act — commonly referred to as WARN. Notifications are required when an employer lays off more than 50 employees.

Marlina Frederick, human resources director for Ford in Long Beach, wrote in the June 30 letter to EDD that the Irvine studio is closing Nov. 30, which could result in as many as 263 job cuts as workers shift to locations in Long Beach and Dearborn, Michigan.

All employees working in Irvine were offered employment in either city, Frederick said.

Ford spokesman Emma Bergg said not everyone agreed to the offer, with “several employees” electing not to relocate. Their employment with Ford will end Aug 31, she said. Employees who remained in Southern California were due to start work in the Long Beach office by early July, she added.

“This new facility is enabling us to move the majority of our locally based design team there when the lease for our studio location in Irvine expires later this year,” said Bergg. She declined to say whether the Long Beach development facility has opened, or how many workers are there now.   

A year ago, Ford’s Doug Field, chief of EVs and digital and design officer, said the company was coming to Long Beach, leasing a 250,000-square-foot facility with room for 450 employees in the Douglas business park, adjacent to the Long Beach Airport.

The research-and-development team at the Ford Electric Vehicle Development Center is being led by Alan Clarke. Before joining Ford in January 2022, Clarke was director of new programs engineering at Tesla.

The 87,639-square-foot Ford Building at 3 Glen Bell Way is being marketed for lease by the brokerage Avison Young.

For years, the parking lot shared by Ford, Mazda and Taco Bell hosted Cars and Coffee on Saturdays. The event grew so popular, with hundreds of car enthusiasts rolling out their new and classic vehicles, organizers were forced to cancel it in 2014. A similar show called South OC Cars And Coffee takes place every Saturday at the Outlets at San Clemente.

Ford and its Lincoln brand have a storied history in California, rooted in Orange County’s automotive industry for decades.

Along with the workforce transition, Bergg said that the focus of Lincoln automobile design will be based in Michigan at a new design center within Ford’s Dearborn research and engineering campus.

The company, which moved its headquarters to Irvine from Washington, D.C. two years ago, is cutting about 25 employees at Supernal’s Orange County operations along Laguna Canyon Road and Waterworks Way through Aug. 29, according to a filing made with the state’s Employment Development Department.

The company also is laying off 27 workers at its Fremont facility in the Bay Area, and a single employee at the company’s Mojave facility, where a demonstration flight test of Supernal’s electric air taxi technology is to take place later this year.

The layoffs, which began June 30, are expected to be permanent, the filing said. Following the cuts, Supernal will have 500 workers.

“The primary reason for this reduction in force is organizational realignment from the technology development phase to the product development phase of our business,” said Supernal spokesman Veronica Grigoriou. “The decision is not one we made lightly, and was undertaken after careful consideration of our roadmap, available resources, and goals for the remainder of the year.”

She said the company is actively working through a certification process for its technology with the Federal Aviation Administration, with the application process beginning in 2026, and a specific design of an aircraft — called “type certification” — expected for approval by 2028. “Our schedule has not been impacted by these changes.”

“Our production aircraft is slated to begin deliveries in the end of 2028,” Grigoriou said. The company has yet to determine a production site for its flying taxis.

Also see: California’s flying e-taxi business startups face daunting hurdles ahead of LA28 Olympics launch

The company conducted tethered flight tests in March but plans “untethered” tests at its Mojave facility later this year.

The layoffs follow last year’s hiring of a key NASA employee to develop a prototype.

In March 2024, Supernal named David McBride as chief technology officer. McBride, who formerly worked with NASA on several space missions with the space agency’s Flight Research Program, remains with the company.

In July 2023, Supernal LLC, which is South Korea automaker Hyundai Motor Group’s Advanced Air Mobility company, opened an engineering headquarters in Irvine to research a flying taxi.

The layoffs targeted a wide range of positions in order to “support [Supernal’s] long-term strategic goals and priorities,” according to a June 30 letter filed with the EDD by Hyunsik Kim, head of human resources with Supernal. Positions included battery cell test engineers, electrical and wiring manager, head of data, information technology coordinator, senior electric power distribution engineer, manager of intelligent flight and technical project coordinator.

The filings were made as part of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act — commonly referred to as WARN, which are required when an employer lays off more than 50 employees. All affected employees are notified at least 60 days before their terminations are scheduled to occur, according to Kim.

Electric taxi concepts lift off vertically and don’t need a runway, creating a niche for air travel in a crowded urban landscape. Once these aircraft take off in the air — like a helicopter — their engines and propellers tilt to fly like an airplane.

Supernal isn’t the only manufacturer working on an electric flying taxi.

Others include San Jose-based Archer Aviation, Santa Cruz-based Joby Aviation and Mountain View-based Wisk Aero, a subsidiary of aerospace giant Boeing Co.

Starting Saturday, July 12, the registrar is hosting several workshops to hear from Orange County voters on polling and ballot drop box locations, accessibility of polling stations, language access, voting outreach programs and safety procedures.

The workshops — several of which offer other languages, including Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Vietnamese — run through the rest of the month and into August.

They are an effort to solicit feedback on how the county can update and improve its Election Administration Plan, which governs how the voting process works in Orange County, said Bob Page, the registrar of voters.

Workshops, which can last between one and one and a half hours, will be split into two categories: general public workshops and accessibility language workshops.

General public workshops are opportunities for anyone to provide feedback. Accessibility language workshops — in addition to having translators for various languages — will focus on how polling centers can better accommodate those whose first language is not English.

Rooms will be divided into five sections — voting and ballot drop box locations, accessibility of voting facilities, language assistance and accessibility services, voter education and outreach programs and safety and security of the election process — where attendees can provide verbal or written feedback, said Page.

Attendees can participate in one or all of the categories. There will also be a packet for attendees who would rather write down all of their feedback instead of visiting each station separately.

“We wanted to give them an opportunity to be comfortable providing feedback in the method they want in the areas they want,” said Page.

The Voters Choice Act, a state law that lays out how counties administer an all-mail ballot election system with ballot drop-off locations and vote centers, requires the registrar to hold a public feedback forum after initial changes are made to the election plan. But Page said his office is hosting the series of workshops — before the plan is edited — to give local voters more involvement in the process.

“We don’t want to just do the minimum required,” Page said. “We want to make sure that we’re getting feedback from as many different people as we can.”

Other factors the registrar is considering for updates include federal and state law, data from previous elections, best practices determined by the registrar and the county budget, Page said.

“The community input and feedback is a very important part of any update we make, but that has to be balanced with those other four elements in terms of what is actually in the plan,” Page said.

Aside from the 15 scheduled workshops, the registrar has invited more than 250 organizations to schedule small group meetings. Many of these organizations are involved in voter outreach and the voting process by lending their facilities for polling locations and drop-off boxes, Page said.

The registrar plans to complete the initial feedback process in the first week of August, Page said. The registrar’s office will then compile summaries of the feedback to be published online and create the first draft of the new 2026-2030 EAP.

“I’ve got a deadline to meet and I’m trying to do my best to give people as much time as possible and as many different formats to provide input,” Page said.

The secretary of state has requested the final draft of the EAP by Dec. 1, although by law it is due 120 days before the June 2026 primary election, which would be in February 2026, Page said.

After the first draft of the EAP is published, there will be a 14-day public review period during which people can provide additional comments on the plan. The registrar’s office has also scheduled a public hearing for Sept. 25 at the Irvine City Hall for in-person feedback.

The registrar will make necessary changes based on feedback received online and at the hearing, Page said. The office will then post a final draft that receives the same 14-day review before final changes are made and the EAP is sent to the secretary of state.

The election plan spanning 2021-2025 is available in 10 languages on the registrar of voters’ website. More information about the workshops or how to submit a feedback form online can also be found on the registrar’s website.

Workshops are scheduled for:

• Saturday, July 12: San Juan Capistrano Community Center (25925 Camino Del Avion), 10-11:30 a.m.

• Monday, July 14: Buena Park Community Center (6688 Beach Blvd.), 6-7 p.m.; Korean language meeting

• Wednesday, July 16: Los Olivos Community Center in Irvine (101 Alfonso), 6-7 p.m.; Farsi interpretation available

• Thursday, July 17: Delhi Center in Santa Ana (505 E. Central Ave.), 6-7 p.m.; Spanish language meeting

• Saturday, July 19: Fountain Valley Recreation Center (16400 Brookhurst St.), 10-11 a.m.; Vietnamese language meeting

• Monday, July 21: South Coast Chinese Cultural Center in Irvine (9 Truman St.), 6-7 p.m.; Chinese language meeting

• Tuesday, July 22: Southwest Senior Center in Santa Ana (2201 W. McFadden Ave.), 6-7:30 p.m.

• Wednesday, July 23: Zoom meeting with ASL interpretation available, 6-7 p.m.

• Thursday, July 24: West Anaheim Youth Center (320 S. Beach Blvd.), 6-7 p.m., Tagalog interpretation available

• Saturday, July 26: Huntington Beach Central Library (7111 Talbert Ave.), 10-11:30 a.m.

• Monday, July 28: Northwood Community Center in Irvine (4531 Bryan Ave.), 6-7 p.m., Japanese interpretation available

• Tuesday, July 29: Norman P. Murray Community Center in Mission Viejo (24932 Veterans Way), 6-7:30 p.m.

• Wednesday, July 30: Buena Park Library (7150 La Palma Ave.), 6-7 p.m.; Hindi interpretation available

• Thursday, July 31: East Anaheim Community Center (8201 E. Santa Ana Canyon Rd.), 6-7 p.m.; Gujarati interpretation available

• Saturday, Aug. 2: Brea Community Center (695 Madison Way), 10-11:30 a.m.

Irvine is Southern California’s top spot for renters and San Bernardino the worst, according to a national ranking of places to be a tenant.

My trusty spreadsheet reviewed a recent rentability scorecard from WalletHub, which graded 182 large U.S. cities – including 20 in Southern California – on their desirability for renters.

The grades were based on two components. What I’ll call “affordability” – 13 benchmarks tracking everything from the price of rents vs. incomes to the tenant-friendliness of local laws. And there’s “livability” – a combination of eight yardsticks of regional quality of life, from schools to safety to weather. Those grades were combined into a national ranking.

Consider Irvine’s No. 1 grade for Southern California.

It was driven by the city scoring second-best for the region’s affordability. Keep in mind, that’s essentially a comparison of citywide high rents to fat local paychecks. Plus, Irvine ranked No. 3 for local livability. And on the national scale, Irvine ranked No. 26 among the 180 U.S. cities.

No. 2 was Huntington Beach, with the fourth-best regional affordability and the No. 1 grade for Southern California livability. Nationally, it was No. 35.

And the region’s third-best city for renters was San Diego – No. 7 in affordability, No. 5 in livability, and No. 63 nationally.

By the way, the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park was scored the best U.S. spot for renters.

Low scores

At the other end of the rentability spectrum, San Bernardino scored the region’s lowest grade for tenants.

That was based on its No. 18 grade for local affordability and No. 20 rank for livability. Nationally, it ranked No. 174. Only eight ranked lower, with Memphis scoring as the nation’s worst place to rent.

The next lowest locally was Moreno Valley, scoring No. 20 for local affordability, No. 13 in Southern California livability, and No. 165 nationally.

No. 18 regionally was Ontario – No. 19 in affordability, No. 10 in livability, and No. 156 nationally.

Same old story

That national scale tells a familiar story about Southern California living. A solid place to live, if you can afford it.

Contemplate that the 20 local cities had an average No. 51 U.S. ranking for livability. That’s significantly better than the typical No. 97 grade for 153 cities tracked that are located outside of California.

However, there’s a price to pay. Southern California’s average affordability rank was a lowly No. 154 compared with No. 82 for renting outside of the Golden State.

That’s why, on this U.S. scale, Southern California averaged an overall No. 112 rank for rentability vs. No. 88 elsewhere.

Other local grades

Here is how the rest of Southern California was graded by WalletHub, in order of desirability – high to low …

No. 4 Garden Grove: No. 10 for regional affordability, No. 2 for livability, and No. 68 on the national scorecard of 182 cities.

No. 5 Santa Clarita: No. 11 affordability, No. 4 livability, and No. 79 nationally.

No. 6 Fontana: No. 5 affordability, No. 8 livability, and No. 80 nationally.

No. 7 Oxnard: No. 3 affordability, No. 17 livability, and No. 100 nationally.

No. 8 Rancho Cucamonga: No. 15 affordability, No. 6 livability, and No. 103 nationally.

No. 9 Bakersfield: No. 1 affordability, No. 19 livability, and No. 109 nationally.

No. 10 Chula Vista: No. 8 affordability, No. 12 livability, and No. 124 nationally.

No. 11 Anaheim: No. 6 affordability, No. 15 livability, and No. 125 nationally.

No. 12 Long Beach: No. 13 affordability, No. 11 livability, and No. 129 nationally.

No. 13 Santa Ana: No. 9 affordability, No. 14 livability, and No. 132 nationally.

No. 14 Glendale: No. 17 affordability, No. 7 livability, and No. 137 nationally.

No. 15 Los Angeles: No. 14 affordability, No. 16 livability, and No. 141 nationally.

No. 16 Oceanside: No. 16 affordability, No. 9 livability, and No. 148 nationally.

No. 17 Riverside: No. 12 affordability, No. 18 livability, and No. 152 nationally.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com

Glover oversees the Outreach, Recruitment and Engagement Core at UCI’s Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders. She has helped develop educational and diagnostic tools to help older adults improve their cognitive health.

The “Ask the Doc” livestream session can be accessed via youtube.com/@UCIMIND/streams or on Facebook.

The collision occurred on May 9, 2024 around 4:30 p.m. near Culver Drive and Trabuco Road. Irvine police investigators determined that a Honda Civic turned right on a red light onto Culver Drive, forcing a Toyota Corolla already in the intersection to swerve. The Toyota struck the center median, a tree and a light pole before landing on its roof.

The Honda driver fled the scene, police said.

The driver of the Toyota, 67-year-old Irvine resident Allen Yangkaou Lee, died from his injuries.

Tips from the public led detectives to the abandoned Honda on a residential street in the Great Park neighborhood on May 15.

Inside the vehicle, investigators found documents belonging to 24-year-old Francis Guadalupe Tercero-Benavides.

“Without the help of the public caring about what is going on in their community, I don’t know if we would have ever found that car,” said department spokesperson Kyle Oldoerp.

Although detectives were able to identify the suspect, locating her proved difficult. Tercero-Benavides had reportedly moved multiple times across Orange County in the months following the crash, Oldoerp said. He described the search as a “cat and mouse game,” saying that despite surveillance at each new address, officers were unable to spot her until recently.

She was arrested Thursday morning in the 1600 block of Anaheim Boulevard on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and felony hit-and-run.

That’s because the land, although privately owned by the Irvine Company, was designated as permanent open space in a 1988 conservation initiative backed by Irvine voters.

For the development proposal to move forward, city officials disagree on whether voters must approve an amendment to the open space plan or if the City Council can change the plan on its own. 

Putting the legal argument aside, however, councilmembers informally agreed recently that bringing the matter to a citywide vote is their preferred course of action. 

The seven-member City Council could vote on ballot language later this month.

The ballot measure would likely go in front of voters in November.

Irvine’s 1988 initiative was intended to help the city, over time, to accrue large, contiguous swathes of open space in exchange for permitting development opportunities elsewhere.

To facilitate its proposed development on the golf course, the Irvine Company has offered to transfer ownership of 315 acres of open space in northern Irvine to the city and also concede operational control of an additional 565 acres of orchards currently owned by the city, but on which the company maintains agricultural operations. The developer would also build a school in the new neighborhood.

Despite the addition of public open space, the company’s proposal requires an amendment to the city’s open space plan because the golf course is explicitly protected in it.

It’s the first time since the passage of the law 37 years ago that Irvine officials have considered a development on land designated as permanent open space.

The proposed amendment reflects changing times for a master-planned city that has expanded to the edges of its original 20th-century blueprint.

“Frankly, it’s a terrific open space agreement that has stood the test of time and has proven to be extremely valuable to the quality of life and community,” Irvine Mayor Larry Agran said in a recent interview. In 1988, he was a councilmember who supported the initiative. 

“While we’ve adhered to the master planning process and to the fundamentals of the master plan, it gets tougher and tougher as you go along,” Agran added.  “This development, even though it’s large, is kind of in the nature of what we sometimes refer to as infill.”

Infill is the process of making urban spaces denser instead of building outward.

For decades, Irvine had to deal with infill only rarely, as the city built toward its limits, one neighborhood at a time, according to the city’s master plan.

Since the 1970s, the Irvine Company alone has built 22 residential villages. 

Its neighborhoods stretch to the peripheries of the 66-square-mile city and push into the foothills of the Santa Ana mountains.

Now, the city has more than 315,000 residents and hardly any space left to grow outward. 

Infill is the city’s challenging new reality, especially as elected officials walk a tightrope between respecting the original designs of the master plan and meeting ambitious state housing mandates. 

They’re also juggling those goals with a promise to keep about 16,000 acres of parks, trails and wilderness areas — an area greater than one-third of the entire city — as “forever protected.”

“We adopted (the initiative) as a ballot measure with the understanding that it would make that open space locked away forever free of development,” Agran said. 

 “Certainly, as a matter of honest dealing with the public, it was made clear that nobody was interested in having the council tamper on its own with the open space agreement,” he added.

Since the Irvine Company announced its intentions to develop the golf course at a City Council meeting in May, hundreds of residents have submitted written comments to the city for and against the plan. 

Hence, councilmembers want the matter to come to a citywide vote.

So far, the council has only voted to begin analyses and technical studies of the Irvine Company’s proposal. 

Those studies will take almost a year to finish and will happen concurrently as voters go to the polls.

Only then, and should the amendment pass, will the City Council weigh the merits of the Irvine Company’s proposal.

An Irvine Company spokesperson said it’s premature for the company to comment on the prospective ballot measure, but it welcomes the city’s holistic review process.

In the meantime, Agran says the city must complete its due diligence.

“I think what has been submitted is a coherent, reasonable development,” he said. “We’ll have to await the analyses to see how much adversity this brings in terms of traffic and other adverse effects, whether those could be mitigated, and whether, on balance, it makes sense to go ahead.”

SoCalGas has been trying for more than five years to get the project started. Now it’s just waiting for approval from the California Public Utilities Commission, and if approved the pilot project would be underway by 2027. Two required public participation hearings were held Tuesday, the first drawing about 70 people.

The proposal is to blend up to 20% of hydrogen gas in existing natural gas pipelines at the university’s recreation center to power equipment such as pool heaters and kitchen appliances. The process would be monitored by trained staff and the pilot project would run for about three years, according to the commission. 

Because hydrogen doesn’t produce carbon dioxide when burned, using it can be a lower-carbon alternative to natural gas. 

Last year, when SoCalGas and three other gas companies reapplied for approval of their five test projects, including the one at UC Irvine, environmentalist groups such as the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund, as well as consumer advocate groups, pushed back. 

This is the gas companies’ third time applying — a previous proposal would have run hydrogen through UCI’s freshman dorms and on-campus dining halls, but was rejected in 2023 after the student body opposed the plan. 

A SoCalGas representative said at Tuesday’s public hearing the project would establish a standard for the state to one day use hydrogen as an “important tool” to reach carbon neutrality goals. Some UC Irvine professors at the hearing said hydrogen is a key step toward making the energy grid sustainable.  

But the Climate Action Campaign, which has organized local opposition to the project, argued at the public participation hearing that companies such as SoCalGas only push hydrogen to ensure reliance on their gas infrastructure during movements toward sustainability. The proposed project is still reliant on fossil fuel infrastructure, they argued, and is just “greenwashing,” or trying to brand non-renewable energy as sustainable. 

Some commenters raised concerns that hydrogen also produces air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and can be more prone to leakage and explosions. They opposed the project, saying the safety risk to those using the recreation center and nearby residences and child care centers is not worth the demonstration of hydrogen use. 

UC San Diego ended up rejecting a similar proposed project on campus.

UC Irvine calls the project a major step toward bringing clean energy to all of California. Climate activists dub it a “risky on-campus experiment.” 

Graduate students from UCI’s Clean Energy Institute who spoke at the hearing said hydrogen blending can lower emissions of existing gas lines without major infrastructure changes to make a difference now. They said the project can allow researchers to study the performance and safety of hydrogen to eventually scale it across California. 

The Climate Action Campaign pushed to postpone the hearing until the academic year, to hear from more undergraduate students who are currently on summer break. 

During the school year, the UCI student body passed legislation in opposition of the project, saying most students weren’t made aware of what would be built under their gymnasium. Only a handful of students were in attendance at the hearing Tuesday.

The California Public Utilities Commission will hold eight more public participation hearings through the end of August around the state to cover all the proposed projects. Administrative Law Judge Charles Ferguson, who is overseeing the case, will continue to review the proposal. 

“This has been very fruitful, in my opinion, and I’ve been to a lot of these for a lot of different utilities,” Ferguson said Tuesday. “This one is quite high level and I really appreciate everything that everybody gave on both sides of the issue here. There is science on both sides.”

After the public hearings, an evidentiary hearing will be held that can take several days to weeks. After which, Ferguson will make a proposed decision that will then need three votes from commissioners to stand. 

Commissioners can also vote to disregard Ferguson’s decision.

He said Tuesday the process may lead into mid-2026. Ferguson also suggested residents add comments or documentation to the public record for review by the commission to have their voices heard.