The last movie played at the Foothill Ranch Regal in September 2024, and the building sat dark for nearly two years while plans for what would replace it moved through city hearings one agenda item at a time. Late last month, the demolition tractors finally showed up. A Lake Forest resident who photographed the scene told a local reporter he had mixed feelings watching the building come down, remembering pre-pandemic trips there with his wife before their first child was born.
That part of the story is easy to find. What's harder to find, because it's buried in planning documents and a March city council vote rather than in a headline, is what the approval actually settled and what it left open. Two numbers from the record explain more about daily life around Foothill Ranch Towne Centre once Costco opens than the fact of the project itself does.
The Site, Before And After
The theater wasn't a small building. According to the city's environmental review, the existing structure covered 87,263 square feet, sitting on a 16-acre parcel with more than half a million square feet of surface parking around it. What replaces it is a different kind of building entirely.
| Former Regal/Cinemark | Approved Costco | |
|---|---|---|
| Building size | 87,263 sq ft | 165,068 sq ft |
| Height | Multi-screen theater | 34 feet, single story |
| Parking spaces | Shared lot, unspecified allocation | 2,068 spaces (1,994 required) |
| Additional uses | None | Tire center, food court, off-site alcohol sales |
| Fuel station | N/A | Not included in current plans |
The new building is nearly double the footprint of the theater it replaces, on the same 16-acre site, with a tire center added to the mix. That scale is exactly why the entitlement process took over a year instead of a few months.
A Timeline Longer Than It Looked
For a project that reads as a simple retail swap, the approval took its time:
- September 2024: the theater closes for good.
- Mid-2025: Mayor Scott Boyds announces in a city video that Costco has submitted plans to demolish the theater and build a warehouse store, noting the current version includes no gas station.
- February 5, 2026: the Lake Forest Planning Commission unanimously approves the project, opening a 15-day appeal window.
- Within that window, an appeal is filed challenging the project's traffic analysis.
- March 17, 2026: the City Council holds a hearing de novo and unanimously upholds the Planning Commission's approval, rejecting the appeal.
- Late August 2026: demolition of the theater begins.
That's a year and a half from closed theater to first tractor, and the middle third of that timeline was consumed entirely by the appeal over traffic.
The Argument Nobody Won Outright
Two Lake Forest residents spoke at the February Planning Commission hearing, and their positions frame what this project means for people who already live nearby. Dwight Robinson, a 27-year resident and former councilmember and mayor, urged approval, arguing that a local Costco would keep Lake Forest sales tax dollars from leaking to stores in neighboring cities. Andrew O'Connor, a longtime Foothill Ranch resident, opposed it, arguing residents hadn't been adequately consulted and that a big-box anchor could hurt the food court and independent restaurants that share the same parking lot.
O'Connor didn't let the concern drop once the case moved to the City Council in March. He returned to tell council members to see the corridor for themselves on a Friday or Saturday afternoon before deciding the traffic question was settled. The council heard him out and sided with staff's findings anyway, upholding the approval unanimously. But O'Connor's specific worry, about shared parking and the food court's survival, is worth sitting with, because the numbers in the approved plan address it directly, even if they don't resolve it.
The Parking Math Is the Real Story
Lake Forest's own approval requires 1,994 parking spaces for a project this size. The approved plan provides 2,068, a cushion of 74 spaces beyond code. That's not a rounding error. In a shopping center where the food court and smaller tenants depend on overflow parking from the anchor lot, the difference between meeting the minimum and building a buffer above it is the difference between a food court that survives a Saturday Costco rush and one that quietly empties out.
The extra capacity doesn't guarantee the small restaurants around the food court keep their customers. It does suggest the city and the applicant were aware that parking, not shelf space, was the real friction point in this approval, which lines up exactly with the concern O'Connor raised on the record.
The Traffic Study's Fine Print
The other number worth knowing sits in the technical appendices city planning commissioner Tom Grable referenced during the February hearing. The traffic study projected levels of service of A or B, meaning free-flowing conditions, at most nearby intersections through 2028. Two intersections were flagged at lower levels of service. City staff told commissioners the study did not identify a need for intersection improvements or turning-pocket extensions at those two locations, and that Costco had volunteered some additional measures beyond what the study required.
For a resident timing a Friday or Saturday afternoon errand run through the Towne Centre, this is the detail that actually matters. Most of the corridor should hold up fine even after the store opens. Two specific intersections were flagged as the exception, not the whole area, which is a meaningfully different picture than a blanket warning about worse traffic across Foothill Ranch.
What Actually Changes For People Nearby
Foothill Ranch Towne Centre sits between Alton Parkway and Bake Parkway in the northern part of Lake Forest, a location that already puts it within a shorter drive for residents in parts of Irvine, Mission Viejo, and the Saddleback foothills, not just Lake Forest itself. A Costco there gives that broader area a third big-box option alongside the existing Target and Walmart, without adding a new gas station, at least under the plans approved so far.
That last detail, no gas station "at this time," is worth remembering rather than treating as settled. Plans get amended. If gas ends up added in a later phase, it would be a separate approval process, not something baked into what already cleared the council in March.
What's actually resolved: the theater is gone, the entitlements are final, and the traffic and parking questions that shaped a year of hearings were answered with specific numbers rather than assurances. What's still open: whether that extra parking cushion is enough to keep the food court's smaller tenants afloat once the anchor store opens, and whether the two flagged intersections stay tolerable once construction traffic gives way to shopper traffic. Those are the two things worth watching over the next year, not the fact of the Costco itself.
If you're weighing what a corner of Foothill Ranch like this means for property values or timing a move in or out of the area, that's a longer conversation, and one The Jesse Group is glad to have with anyone thinking it through.
