Tustin Marine Corps Air Station

Col. David L. McEvoy will assume command of the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station from Col. Robert G. Mitchell during a change of command ceremony to be held there Thursday. Mitchell will now become the special projects officer at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. McEvoy most recently served as community planning and liaison officer at El Toro. Lt. Col. Samuel J. Ware recently assumed command of the Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron-465, Marine Aircraft Group-16, at Tustin Marine Corps Air Station.

Long ago it was a humble bean field. For more than half a century it was a military base. Now, 100 acres in Tustin have been transformed into the inevitable Orange County end use: a shopping center. Make that a very big shopping center -- or, as it's being marketed, "a retail lifestyle and entertainment center."

Irvine officials promised Tuesday to honor a commitment by Tustin to offer 14 homes at the former Tustin Marine base as temporary housing for poor families. The homes are on an area of the base within Irvine's boundaries. The bulk of the base is in Tustin. The homes, transitional housing, will be operated by Families Forward of Irvine, formerly known as Irvine Temporary Housing.

A historic wooden hangar that housed military blimps during World War II will be razed to make way for homes, businesses, parks and schools, Tustin city leaders decided this week. The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to reject proposals for a motocross facility, a culinary complex, shops catering to the elderly and a futuristic airship building center. Each would have preserved the hangar.

The Community Redevelopment Agency on Tuesday issued a request to seek developer interest as the first step in building a commercial business site at the former Tustin Marine Corps Air Station, which was renamed Tustin Legacy by the City Council. Developer responses are due March 24. Information: (714) 573-3124.

A Marine who fled the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station by threatening to blow up his car was identified Thursday as Lance Cpl. Kevin J. Hurley, 19, of Idaho Falls, Ida. Hurley has been missing since Tuesday. Marine Corps spokesmen said that Hurley was being escorted to the base medical facility by another Marine when Hurley said his car's gasoline tank was wired like a bomb and he would detonate it if anyone tried to stop him from leaving.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday took the first step toward establishing a military history museum in an 18-story blimp hangar at the former Tustin Marine Corps Air Station by voting to turn over two buildings adjacent to it for use as an interim site. Dozens of veterans packed the hearing to support the idea. A feasibility study estimates the museum would cost $262 million to build and more than $6 million a year to operate.

About 550 Irvine homes, including a number of spacious, three-bedroom spreads, are doing little more than gathering dust in an area where the need for affordable and government-subsidized housing is considered dire. Officials from Irvine and Tustin are seeking to change that by renovating the 1,257 vacant houses on the former Tustin Marine Corps Air Station for civilian use. Both cities are in a holding pattern over the 1,571-acre installation as they wait for the U.S.

Rankling veterans who had lobbied to open a military history museum at the former Tustin Marine base, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 1 Tuesday to negotiate with a developer seeking to build a sports-themed retail complex and veterans memorial in one of two former blimp hangars.

With a chanted count of "three, two, one," a Caterpillar tractor punched through the tarmac at Tustin's former Marine base Tuesday, breaking ground on Legacy Park, an 820-acre development of schools, parks, homes, offices and shops that will increase the city's population 20%. Builders hope to have some of the 2,105 planned homes ready for occupancy in 2008. About 22% of the housing will be "affordable" under state guidelines. The entire project is expected to be completed by 2020.

The first homeowners moved onto the old Tustin Marine base Friday, throwing open the door to one of Orange County's largest suburban infill developments. Unperturbed by flatbed trucks ferrying wooden roof beams across the 30-acre property or construction machinery rumbling across the street, the Gonzales family marveled at the new structure they now called home. "This was nothing but weeds and tumbleweeds," Wayne Gonzales said of the once-barren lot off Edinger Avenue and Jamboree Road.

Nearly 2,500 hopeful home buyers attended a hoopla-filled sales event Saturday in Tustin, complete with hot dogs, balloon animals and plenty of information handouts. The only thing missing were the homes. The invitation-only event sponsored by developer John Laing Homes was meant to preview the first master-planned community rising on the grounds of the closed Tustin Marine base. It also illustrated Orange County's superheated housing market.

A homeless shelter being built at the former Tustin Marine base received $1 million in construction funds Thursday, the largest of seven grants given to low-income housing projects in Orange County. The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, a federally sponsored lender that provides low-interest mortgages to low-income housing programs, awarded nearly $3 million to Orange County projects out of a $43-million giveaway nationwide.

The military officers and their families who lived at the Tustin Marine base left four years ago. On Tuesday, movers finally came for their appliances. Volunteers for Habitat for Humanity plucked refrigerators, stoves and water heaters from rows of apartments on the closed base and loaded them onto a truck. The appliances were headed to Habitat's store in Santa Ana, where they will be sold to raise funds for the nonprofit group, which builds homes for low-income families.

A Tustin Marine who faced life in prison after admitting that he tampered with gauges on a CH-53 Sea Stallion to prove that helicopters were unsafe will be discharged with a less-than-honorable discharge, but without a court-martial. Cpl.

It is an impressive gift: 85 acres and a historic building to boot. But Orange County officials aren't quite sure it is a windfall. The county is scheduled to inherit a portion of the closed Tustin Marine base -- including one of its two massive World War II blimp hangars -- for use as a specialized county park with a private operator. But county officials say they are in no rush to take ownership. "People think it's free land," said Michael W.

The Tustin City Council has selected a master planner for the largest parcel of the shuttered Tustin Marine base, capping more than a decade of preparation in the massive redevelopment project, officials said Tuesday. The council voted unanimously Monday evening to grant redevelopment rights on 700 acres of the former military facility to a partnership between Dallas-based home builder Centex Corp. and Walnut-based real estate giant J.F. Shea Co.