Ca Great Park El Toro

After years of ambitious planning, the Orange County Great Park will take shape -- at least initially -- as a far more modest spread than what supporters once vowed would rank among America's great municipal parks. On Tuesday, the Irvine City Council voted 3 to 2 to spend $65.5 million over the next three to five years on turning a western flank of the old El Toro Marine Base into parkland. The city will use the money to transform about 225 acres of the base into sprawling lawns, exhibition space, sports fields, farmland, citrus groves and a wildlife corridor.

In the latest effort to move forward on a massive park planned for the former El Toro Marine base in Orange County, the city of Irvine has struck a new deal with the developer that is supposed to build thousands of homes around the parkland. In a 3-2 vote late Tuesday, the City Council approved substantial changes to its 2005 agreement with Lennar Corp., which bought the base from the Navy with the intention of building dozens of neighborhoods around 1,347 acres of city-owned land christened the Orange County Great Park.

The housing boom may be bust and the economy may be circling the drain, but that hasn't stopped the design of Orange County's Great Park from being completed. Even the smallest detail is intricately considered in the extensive plans for the Irvine park. A model shows visitors at the northwest entrance parked on dirt roads flanked by jagged slabs of recycled concrete that look almost native to the environment. Shade structures replicate the look of floating clouds.