Irvine Public Library has identified an Irvine Company-owned parking lot 1,500 feet from Northwood High School as a site for a potential new Orchard Hills library.
IPL included this location on the northeastern corner of Portola Parkway and Orchard Hills Drive in a feasibility study for future libraries, presented to the city council on Oct. 14. The site could serve as a permanent library for northern Irvine if Orange County declines to extend IPL’s lease for Katie Wheeler Library, which will expire on Dec. 31, 2029.
“It’s always great when you can put a library in walking distance of a high school,” city librarian Julie Zeoli said. “In [northern Irvine], there’s not a lot of available space, and with it tied to the [housing] project, it was just a natural fit at the time of including it in the feasibility study.”
The project still faces multiple hurdles before becoming reality. Irvine Company offered the property to the city in May as part of negotiations for developing the company-owned Oak Creek Golf Course. A non-binding agreement between the city and Irvine Company approved on May 13 conditioned the city’s acceptance of the parking lot deed on the approval of the company’s 3,100-unit Oak Park housing project.
The city council decided to place the Oak Park project on a future ballot, likely during the 2026 election cycle.
“Hopefully we’re going to move forward,” said Councilmember Melinda Liu, who represents northern Irvine and initiated the IPL feasibility study in April. “Because what I do on the council is: I look not just in the next 20 years, I look in the next 50 years. Are we doing something sustainable? Are we providing continuous service?”
The proposed Orchard Hills library would be approximately 28,000 square feet, with the construction cost estimated at around $40 million.
To conduct the feasibility study, IPL consulted with architectural firm Johnson Favaro and collected feedback during eight community meetings in June and August. According to architect Jim Favaro, the firm decided against putting the Orchard Hills branch library in Settlers or Meadowood parks due to limited accessibility.
“[The parking lot]’s a very beautiful site,” Favaro said. “It’s slightly elevated, so it will have great views south across the city.”
A larger IPL master plan will determine funding sources, final systemwide locations and a construction timeline and is set to be brought to the city council for approval between October 2026 and April 2027.
“Given what we were allotted in time, [the feasibility study] was a very high-level approach to looking at potential growth,” Zeoli said. “What we do know is it really was not enough time to really take a comprehensive look at all the opportunities out there.”
The proposed site for the Orchard Hills library is located next to offices for the Irvine Company-funded nonprofit Irvine Ranch Conservancy, an electrical substation and Irvine Ranch Water District facilities. These parties did not respond to emails to comment on how operations would be impacted except for Irvine Ranch Conservancy, which declined to comment on the proposal.
“We are not involved with the Irvine Company’s proposal and are not aware of the details or whether they involve the site where our office is,” Irvine Ranch Conservancy communications manager Scott Graves said.
Despite the extensive wait until the library can be built, Northwood students have expressed interest in the site’s practicality.
“Opening a library next to Northwood would be really useful for me,” sophomore Vidhya Yuvaraj said. “Because sometimes I have to stay after school … I would just walk over there and I would hang out there for the next two hours.”
Katie Wheeler Library will begin serving northern Irvine residents when it reopens in early 2026. IPL will periodically update the city council on its master planning process, with the next presentation scheduled for January 2026.
