A newly formed subsidiary of an Irvine land brokerage firm has agreed to help entitle a site in Riverside County for a proposed master planned community. TBJ Menifee LLC intends to build Fleming Ranch next to Interstate 215 in Menifee, said Damon Gascon, president of the recently formed Park Place Partners Development Solutions Inc.

The agreement between TBJ Menifee and Park Place Partners Development Solutions was announced July 17.

TBJ Menifee holds an option to buy the Fleming Ranch site for an undisclosed sum from the Fleming Family Limited Partnership in Encino, but it won't make that purchase until the property has been prepared for development, Gascon said.

Fleming Ranch will be a mixed-use master planned community. It will include an estimated 1,500 residential units, a middle school and perhaps a neighborhood retail center, Gascon said.

Plans call for it to be built on 325 acres between Ethanac Road and McCall Boulevard.

The developer, a trio of private investors, bought the option to buy the property from K. Hovnanian Homes for undisclosed amount in 2006.

Like TBJ Menifee, K. Hovnanian Homes originally held an option to buy the property from the Fleming Family Limited Partnership and planned to develop the site, but changed its mind and sold the purchase option to TBJ Menifee when the Inland housing market softened, Gascon said.

Now TBJ Menifee has hired Park Place Partners Development Solutions - a subsidiary of Park Place Partners Inc., a residential land brokerage firm in Irvine - to help prepare documentation so it can develop Fleming Ranch when the economy turns around, Gascon said.

"Their plan is to move forward with the project," Gascon said. "It's just a matter of when the economy gets better."

Officials with TBJ Menifee could not be reached for comment.

Park Place Partners Development Solutions will help TBJ Menifee get the property entitled, prepare a site specific plan and environmental impact report and draw up tentative tract maps for the development.

The entitlement process alone could take 18 months to three years before construction begins on Fleming Ranch.

"Ultimately, the market will determine when construction starts," Gascon said.

Park Place Partners Development Solutions Inc. will cover much of Southern California, but it expects to do much of its business in Riverside County, at least during the next two to three years, Gascon said.

"Riverside County is the heart of residential construction in Southern California," he said. "It's where most of the development is happening, and it's where it will happen for the next 20 years. We don't see that changing."

Gascon was Inland Empire president of K. Hovnanian Homes' Southern California Coastal Region before he agreed to take over Park Place Partners Development Solutions, which started doing business during the first week of July.

It's a subsidiary of Park Place Partners Inc., which brokers residential land sales between outside parties, said R. Jeffrey Spindler, president and co-founder of Park Place Partners.

Gascon's job will be to help land owners, investors and private institutions through the nuances of owning residential real estate and preparing those sites for sale or development.

The newly formed subsidiary expects to get some business from banks and other lending institutions that now find themselves owning foreclosed development sites and wondering what to do with them.

Many financial people are in unfamiliar territory when they suddenly own land, Spindler said.

"They don't necessarily understand dealing with property," he said. "It's not their field of expertise, and some of them will need some help."

Park Place Partners Development Solutions will conduct its Riverside County business out of Park Place Partners' office in Riverside, Spindler said.