Lake Forest OSA, A Project Of Griffin And Nuquest

Griffin/Nuquest was retained by the City of Lake Forest as a fiduciary development advisor in the consideration of a General Plan re-designation of 935 acres of commercial land to residential land uses. The project is known as the Lake Forest Opportunity Study (OSA).

Griffin/Nuquest created a process through which the seven landowners and City worked in partnership to evaluate the impacts of the General Plan Amendment and to provide for much needed public facilities through a “shared financial benefit” of the higher land values (commercial to residential). The plan provides $145M of capitalization to build the City’s largest sports park and a civic center at to cost to existing taxpayers.
Nuquest was charged with the management of the Program EIR, business plan, operating plan, fiscal balance study, Lake Forest Traffic Mitigation program, master planning, schools mitigation agreement and public facilities design to package the opportunity for the City and the landowners.

The public facilities plan includes over $20M in transportation improvements; a $50M 65-acre sports park with recreation center, a $30M 10-acre civic center and over $45M in land acquisitions for the public facilities. The project also included a schools mitigation agreement providing over $30M in new school facilities for the Saddleback Valley School District.

Project included a program level EIR, traffic mitigation fee program, five individual development agreements, negotiation of a land exchange with the County of Orange, public facilities design engineering and pre-construction services, formation of individual Community Facilities Districts, negotiation with the resource agencies for 404/1603 permits with the water quality district, USFWS, CDFG and ACoE.