If plans go as anticipated, a new concert venue will replace Irvine Meadows Amphitheater, which is closing for good at the end of the month, and be open for business by next summer, officials announced Tuesday.
Developer FivePoint has filed for a conditional use permit with the city of Irvine, to allow concert promoter Live Nation to design and build the venue on about 45 acres next to the Orange County Great Park, which is less than two miles from Irvine Meadows.
Irvine Meadows, which opened in 1981, will be the site of apartments constructed by the Irvine Company.
“Since the early 1980s, music lovers in Orange County and beyond have made Irvine their summer home, coming to see some of the greatest musical talents of all time,” FivePoint’s chief executive and chairman, Emile Haddad, said. “We’re determined to keep this tradition alive by working with Live Nation to develop the next-generation, outdoor music venue in Irvine. Music plays a major role in building community. It brings people together and breaks down barriers. Live, outdoor music is part of Orange County’s heritage and it is essential to its future.”
The 12,000-seat venue next to the Great Park will be temporary, officials said. By 2020, the plan is to construct a permanent outdoor concert venue in the park, located where the southern runways were when the land was the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station base.
Officials want to design a permanent stadium like America’s Cup Pavilion in San Francisco, which opened in 2013, with the venue facing the Santa Ana Mountains and Saddleback Park.
–City News Service