The Canopy at Great Park, Irvine: Opening Timeline and Updates

At 7900 Great Park Blvd, the drive-through lane has been moving since September 4. The In-N-Out there has 84 seats in the dining room and 36 on the patio. It sits at the edge of a 12-acre open-air retail and dining hub next to the Great Park tennis courts. The City of Irvine's Great Park news page calls it "the first tenant to open" at The Canopy. In that update, posted September 9, it's the only tenant listed as open.

When the rest arrives depends on which part of The Canopy you mean. The center is being built as two projects with two builders and two very different finish lines. Everything announced so far makes more sense once you know which one a store belongs to.

One center, two pieces of land

The Canopy is planned as a 12-acre, 90,000-plus-square-foot destination for retail, dining and everyday services. It's also designed to be walkable. The plans include a structural rehabilitation of Hangar 10, a hangar left over from the old base. City Council materials from April 2025 split it in two:

• Phase 1 sits on property owned by Almquist, the developer, and is planned for grocery-anchored neighborhood services.
• Phase 2 sits on City of Irvine property and is planned for food, drink and lifestyle uses.

That split decides who builds what and when. The developer controls the Phase 1 schedule. Phase 2 shows up in the city's own monthly Great Park construction reports, next to projects like the park's new maintenance yard. For you, that means the two halves move at different speeds, and a store opening on one half says little about the other.

The first clock: a first wave forecast for "late 2026"

In March 2026, The Canopy announced its first wave of retail and restaurant tenants. The OC Register reported at the time that the first stores were expected in late 2026. The center's website still says "Coming late 2026" and doesn't list dates for individual tenants.

Here's each announced name with the most specific timing it has been given in public:

What Now reported the H&H Bagels timing as an estimate, not a confirmed opening date. The Shootz window is the most candid one in the group. Co-founder Michael Dancel told the Irvine Standard the restaurant will open "late this year or in early 2027." He described it as a place for "families bringing their kids for soccer practice and hosting a lot of baby showers and birthday parties." In the same article, Osen chef-owner Damon Cho said the new spot will be approachable and modern, with a menu built around Japanese flavors. What Now's coverage placed Osen Urban Table near the Bosque Trail.

By next week, "late 2026" leaves about ten weeks on the calendar. Every name on this list is still working toward a forecast, and the one tenant that spoke on the record has already allowed for 2027.

The grocery anchor has two forecasts

T&T Supermarket is the center's anchor. It will take about 34,000 square feet for its first Orange County store. The published timing doesn't agree. The OC Register's March report forecast early 2027. A July report in the California Post said late 2026 and described The Canopy opening in phases through the rest of 2026, with a broader rollout in 2027. Both are forecasts. Phase 1 is the grocery-anchored half of the plan, so T&T's opening is the clearest sign of when Phase 1 is actually finished.

The second clock: Canopy 2 and Hangar 10 run well into 2027

The city's September 2026 Great Park design and construction report covers Phase 2. It's a joint effort between the city and Almquist Development + Investment called the Canopy 2 Site Improvements project. The scope includes:

1. Demolition, grading and utilities
2. A roadway, a dedicated parking lot and a back-of-house road
3. Landscaping
4. Four retail buildings
5. An extension of Hornet Drive to connect with The Canopy retail site

Work started in March. The report puts completion in winter 2027/28. In its monthly update, crews were focused on building the parking lot, with that work continuing into October.

Hangar 10 is the piece with the most history. The city is turning a former base-era aircraft hangar into a single-story building with several tenants on a 9,571-square-foot lot in the Canopy 2 site. The design is meant to reflect the character of the original structure, and the building will hold retail, food and drink, and recreation space. Construction starts in December, with completion expected in summer 2027. In September, city staff were still onboarding the contractor, who was expected to start work on site this month.

Put the two clocks side by side and the full schedule looks like this:

• Sept. 4, 2026: In-N-Out opens, the first Phase 1 tenant.
• Late 2026 to early 2027: Forecast window for the first-wave tenants and T&T.
• December 2026: Hangar 10 construction is set to begin.
• Summer 2027: Hangar 10 completion expected.
• Winter 2027/28: Canopy 2 site work, including the four retail buildings and the Hornet Drive extension, expected to finish.

From the burger stand's opening day to the last scheduled Phase 2 milestone, that's more than a year of construction at the same address.

What the two clocks mean for daily life near the park

Openings will come one at a time. The March tenant list mixes coffee, bagels, a Japanese restaurant, Korean barbecue, tacos and several apparel shops. Nothing published ties them to a single grand opening day, and no center-wide event has been announced. With forecasts like "late this year or in early 2027," expect stores to open one by one over several months.

The grocery store is the one to watch. For households in the Great Park Neighborhoods, T&T changes the weekly routine more than any other tenant on the list, and it has the widest gap between forecasts. If you're planning around it, keep both the late 2026 and early 2027 windows in mind.

Construction will keep going after the first stores open. Parking lot work on the Canopy 2 site was continuing this fall, Hangar 10 construction starts in December, and the Hornet Drive extension is part of a project scheduled to finish in winter 2027/28. Even as the first-wave shops open, the city-owned half next door will still be under construction for months.

The most reliable updates come from the city. The City of Irvine's Great Park news page is where In-N-Out's opening was confirmed, and it offers an email signup for Great Park development news. The monthly Great Park design and construction report tracks Hangar 10 and the Canopy 2 site improvements month by month. Between those two sources, you'll see each new opening before the center's own banner changes.

Developer CEO Dan Almquist told the Irvine Standard that Great Park visitors "have long awaited a retail and dining hub." Going by the city's own schedule, they'll be watching it open in pieces through the winter of 2027/28.

If you own a home in the Great Park Neighborhoods and want to know how a new center going up down the street fits into your home's value, Team Mike & Tasha can walk you through it, in English or Mandarin. Start with a free home valuation, and we'll keep an eye on The Canopy's openings alongside you.