Ray Wirta, a long-time real estate executive who ran some of Southern California’s most iconic development and commercial real estate ventures, announced he’s retiring from his current job as president of the Irvine Co., ending a four-decade career in banking, development and commercial real estate. Wirta, 75, joined the Orange County-based land-development and commercial investment firm in the depths of the Great Recession in 2010, helping to oversee the company’s homebuilding rebound a year later. The Irvine Co. was the first local homebuilder to relaunch homebuilding and sales in 2010, taking advantage of pent-up demand to buy homes in the master-planned city of Irvine two years before the economic recovery took hold in the rest of the housing market. The firm’s 700-unit “New Home Collection” sold out in about nine months, about 15 months faster than expected, and launched the creation of two major homebuilding firms, TRI Pointe Homes and the New Home Company. The success of that project prompted the Irvine Co. to restart stalled housing and office developments throughout Orange County, including the construction of the county’s two tallest towers at the Irvine Spectrum shopping center and two other high-rises at Newport Center, one of which became bond…