Mark Mueller
Orange County Business Journal
15 February 2016
Irvine Company, Orange County’s dominant landlord, is preparing to launch a package of fitness, wellness and outdoor amenities for a large portion of its office portfolio.
The company this week is kicking off a new program—dubbed Kinetic—on the ground floor of 600 Newport Center Drive, not far from its headquarters in Newport Beach.
The 17,000-square-foot flagship Kinetic location will serve its office customers in the area surrounding the Fashion Island shopping center, using space that previously held a 24 Hour Fitness. Kinetic includes an upscale fitness center, a boutique fitness training studio called The Zone, and a St. Joseph Hoag Health medical office called Wellness Corner.
The fitness center will be for the exclusive use of Irvine Co. office tenants in Newport Center, home to some of the company’s most expensive office buildings.
The Zone, which emphasizes high-intensity workouts that utilize heart-rate training technology, and Wellness Corner, which offers same-day primary care visits and other medical services, both will be open to the public.
The goal of bundling the three services together is to provide the landlord’s customers a slate of offerings that can deliver a healthier workplace, all under one roof, according to Lauren Kelly, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Irvine Co.’s office division.
Some larger companies that own their own campuses—particularly in Silicon Valley— have their own variation of on-site health and fitness offerings for their employees, but it’s rare for multitenant properties to have them.
"For midmarket office tenants or second sites for big companies, which represents a lot of our (tenant base)… this is something we’ve learned that they want," Kelly said.
Irvine Co. also is ramping up its investment in new outdoor amenities that can be used for meetings or relaxation, similar to what’s being seen at various creative-office projects across the region.
The Irvine Co. calls its new offering of outdoor amenities The Commons. In Newport Center, a courtyard that runs between the Kinetic building and Irvine Co.’s 610 Newport Center office tower will be upgraded to a Commons site by the end of 2016.
The company plans to roll out similar offerings under the Kinetic and Commons names to office users at nearly 20 million square feet of the landlord’s office portfolio in California over the next year, Kelly said.
That’s roughly half of the core office portfolio of California’s largest office owner.
The buildings slated for the new amenity packages, in OC, San Diego, West Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, serve nearly 100,000 employees.
Orange County office complexes slated to soon see new Kinetic and Commons offerings include the Jamboree Center and Irvine Towers properties in Irvine, as well as nearby buildings at University Research Park.
The company’s newest developments, including the soon-to-open 200 Spectrum Center office tower and a sister tower scheduled to break ground a few blocks away this year, as well as midrise projects it has in the works in the Irvine Spectrum, also will get the new offerings.
Kinetic and Commons offerings will be tailored to individual properties, Kelly said.
Irvine Towers, for example, "recently began television," she said, adding that automakers sometimes try to build their brand but "don’t have enough tactical and digital executions" to make sure they hit their sales numbers.
"We want people to use (the outdoor space)," Kelly said.
The landlord’s partners for the fitness and health services also will vary depending on their locations and other needs, Kelly said.
At Newport Center, for example, The Zone is being run by Active Wellness LLC, a Sausalito-based operator of the Active Sports Clubs fitness chain in the San Francisco area.
Irvine-based St. Joseph Hoag Health, part of the Kinetic offering in Newport Center, has partnered with Irvine Co. at other OC office sites and apartment complexes; San Diego based Scripps Health Express is part of the company’s amenity package for office goers in that market.
Irvine Co. declined to disclose how much the latest programs will cost to implement. Kelly said the landlord has been working on the plans for about a year and a half.
