Legacy Ranch
Year: Fall 2023
Course: Independent Study
Advisor: Neil Denari
Team: Max Capogrosso (MBA), Briana Rayhaun (MBA), Robert Schrader (MBA), John Sullivan (MBA)
Legacy Ranch is a creative real estate development proposal for a section of the retired Marine Corps Air Station Tustin in Orange County. The project seeks to manage the countering forces of capital and a monumental wooden blimp hangar constructed during WWII that has been culturally annexed by Tustin to serve as an index for the community.
The proposal was developed through a collaboration with a cross-functional, selected team of MBA students from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management competing against a team from the University of Southern California. The site consists of approximately 65 acres with the seven acre hangar that is still standing but in disrepair. The proposal deploys normative construction types for the area that fit the market conditions with 1620 total units - low rise apartments, detached and party wall for-sale townhouses, and wrap apartment and condo buildings. However, it invokes the hangar as a generator for instantiating a park at a scale that is not seen in similar developments in the area. A significant utility of this park is seen through the cultural index that Tustin is creating around the hangar. By locating the image of this building in areas ranging from their logo to their built environment through nearcut-copy logics, there becomes a strong driver to preserve the hangar. To keep the image but fully return the land safely and cost-effectively to the public, the hangar is partially reconstructed and truss elements are secured with lightweight supplemental supports. The new contained exteriority develops a bounded space with highly distributed programming that works to serve as a community hub, resource, and icon for Tustin.
Awarded First Prize in the NAIOP SoCal 2023 Real Estate Challenge.