“A lot of people have big ideas,” Rob Elliott says. “The difference was that this was actually achievable.”
Elliott is chief architect and planner at big developer the Irvine Co. – a job Raymond Watson first held when the land that is now the city of Irvine was a sprawling cattle ranch.
Watson, who died last week at 86, came to the Irvine Co. in 1960. He helped create the renowned master-planned city – along with building the foundation for what is one of the world’s largest real estate fortunes, current Irvine Co owner Donald Bren’s empire – with little personal fanfare.
To see how Watson was able to turn a wild idea into a thriving city, I chatted with Elliot, who worked with Watson when the elder planner returned to the Irvine Co. after a stint with Walt Disney Co.
What I learned from Elliott is that Watson’s genius was seemingly so simple. Not surprising for a guy with very humble beginnings.
Like many great leaders, Watson was able to pull off his crazy idea by amplifying his immense technical skills with strong people skills and a steadfast discipline to stay the course.
Here’s the recipe for Watson’s secret sauce:
HUMILITY
Architects and city planners are afflicted with big egos. Not always bad: It often takes an outsized personality to build something.
That wasn’t Watson, Elliott said. For all his smarts and power, he never thought of his own imprint.
Few people today know that Watson was a leader of the Irvine Co. 15 years before Bren came. Or that he was an influential player in Disney’s theme-park development and the entertainment company’s corporate drama of the 1980s.
Look, it takes a selfless facilitator to pull off building a city. Elliott says it would be hard to image a flashy architect like a Frank Gehry – designer of the shiny Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles – creating an Irvine.
Watson never thought of the importance of his art; rather, he “never veered from what the market was looking for,” Elliott said.
PATIENCE
The Irvine Co. could have sold off the land to developers as quickly as possible and made a small fortune.
Watson’s vision revolved around the notion that there was more value in nurturing the assets for the long haul. Of course, Watson was lucky he worked at a privately held company that didn’t have to deal with Wall Street’s make-me-a-buck-now mentality.
Longer-term planning wasn’t simply holding back land sales. The plan including broad infrastructure – from roads to education to entertainment to shopping – as a framework for the city’s evolution. Watson’s notion of self-sustaining “villages” within the city limits demanded more complex planning.
Elliott concedes at times it was challenging to slow down, saying Watson taught him a simple lesson: “Patience!”
PLANNING
Watson feared ending up with a collection of subdivisions, not a meaningful city.
So his concept of self-sustaining communities was a constant, guiding principle.
Few ideas in city planning – or in many industries, for that matter – are original. Watson had no problem borrowing from what works.
His model for Irvine’s curious village concept was Balboa Island, the small and quirky waterfront community in Newport Bay. There, geographic necessity demanded that the public’s basic necessities be close by.
Watson’s vision meant each Irvine village required its own set of lifestyle basics. That isn’t as easy – but Watson would remind his staff of the bigger challenge.
Elliott recalls Watson speaking of “our super amount of responsibility. … We’ll affect where and how people live.”
RESPECT
One word Elliott used frequently when talking about his old boss was “respectful.”
That could be an obvious managerial trait, but Elliott said Watson took it very seriously.
Obviously, city planning has some distinct political twists. But it’s not so far away from getting a new product through a corporate bureaucracy.
A successful project must incorporate the needs of various outside parties – from the public, both potential customers and neighbors – through suppliers, vendors and key partners.
Elliott says that many urban planners are at times annoyed about the very public approval process – where a handful of citizens can hold up a project with seemingly small or elementary concerns.
Watson taught Elliott to relish that input.
“That’s the coolest thing ever,” Elliott recalls Watson saying of the public comments. “Because those people care.”
DISCUSSION
The idea guy, or the big-name specialist, can be intimidating.
Some of that can be folks being deferential of a title. But Watson wanted people to speak their minds, as he did. (Apparently, Watson first wowed Walt Disney by bluntly questioning the sanity of early plans for the Epcot theme park in Florida.)
Elliott said Watson had a special way of making everybody involved in a project feel like their input was valuable. He was a good listener, and when it was his turn to speak, Elliott recalled of Watson, “he never talked over people.”
Again, meetings or small conversations always targeted the mission.
“He was super practical guy and super approachable,” Elliott said.
THE CUSTOMER
Every profession has it own internal standards that at times conflict with external needs: Are you working for peers, or the public?
Architects and city planners can be among the worst offenders, Elliott says.
And, Elliott wryly explained, “Lots of projects that looked pretty went bankrupt.”
If you think long term, that begets a challenge: Society’s needs and tastes evolve. The Irvine plan wasn’t perfect.
An initial big idea for a true city center to intersect with the fledgling university never took off. Irvine to this day has no true hub. A smaller mistake was planting sycamores at Fashion Island to gain an East Coast look. But soil challenges mean many trees didn’t thrive. Palms were the replacements, and the shopping center adopted a seemingly more appropriate West Coast feel. And the homes in Westpark, an early development, looked way too similar.
Elliott recalls an episode two decades or so ago when he struggled with a shopping center design challenge. Watson came to the rescue with some basic though hard-to-find logic: The project had to work for the tenant, too.
“Design is cool; it has its place,” Elliott said. “They just don’t teach that stuff in school.”
IMAGE
Irvine Co. executives are big fans of Apple products.
Elliott says the look and feel, the packaging and the presentation, all add to the electronics maker’s product values.
“Branding sounds nasty,” Elliott admits. But to Watson, it was far more than product specs or a rallying cry.
Watson believed that people’s perception of the product is paramount. And not just price or features. The experience of living on a street or shopping at a center or walking a neighborhood was a tangible asset that should be crafted and managed.
Elliott notes that Irvine Co. properties usual sell or rent at premium pricing, roughly 15 percent more than competitive products.
Watson’s vision is a profitable one, Elliott notes: “We have a brand, in the very best sense.”
UPDATED 10/31 with correct spelling of Rob Elliott’s name.
