Land in Newport Center that currently holds a car wash is being eyed for a boutique hotel, one of several development projects being proposed for the area around Fashion Island, pending changes to the general plan of the city of Newport Beach.
The former site of Beacon Bay Car Wash, located on the southern end of Newport Center Drive, last month sold to a locally based development group that is exploring building the boutique.
Terms of the sale were not immediately disclosed.
Property records show the Newport Beach-based buyer, Newport Center Anacapa Associates LLC, taking out a $7 million loan to fund the purchase.
The car wash is still operating but not under the longtime Beacon Bay name. It was getting some changes to its landscaping and other cosmetic upgrades as of last week.
The car wash was expected to close down “in the near future,” according to a September 2103 letter from Tod Ridgeway, a partner in the new ownership group, to Newport Beach’s planning department.
Partners
Ridgeway, a local developer who served as Newport Beach’s mayor in 2001 and 2002, is listed with Mike Lutton and Ron Soderling as partners in the group.
Lutton is a longtime area real estate executive and developer, and one-time head of the office and industrial portfolios for Newport Beach-based Irvine Company, which owns most of the property in and around Newport Center, where it has its headquarters.
Soderling has more than 50 years of experience in the real estate industry and currently is a senior partner at Newport Beach-based Resco Properties, a development and investment group.
The new ownership group has told the city it is looking to get approvals for a 125-room, high-end suite hotel at the site, located at 150 Newport Center Drive.
The 1.2-acre site sits next to Irvine Co.’s Gateway Plaza office complex.
“There may be a component that includes high-end condominiums, but at this point in time the request is to consider only a suite hotel concept,” Ridgeway told city planners prior to the land sale getting completed.
A brand for the proposed hotel has not been mentioned. The owners are looking to get approvals to build it as tall as 90 feet, and said they expect a ground-floor restaurant at the site, which would also have below-ground parking.
A hotel “will grow the tax base, provide bed tax and provide a new amenity that is needed in Newport Center,” Ridgeway’s letter to city planners said.
Among existing hotels along Newport Center Drive, Irvine Co.’s Island Hotel Newport Beach has 295 rooms, while Host Hotels & Resorts Inc.’s Newport Beach Marriott Hotel & Spa has 532 rooms.
The hotel plan is among several possible developments at Newport Center that could move ahead if the city’s general plan is revised later this year.
The city is in the process of reviewing possible changes to the land-use portion of its general plan, which was last updated in 2006.
Other changes in Newport Center include a number of proposals by Irvine Co. The area’s largest property owner is looking to expand its office, retail and apartment entitlements in the area, primarily in exchange for a reduction in entitlements elsewhere in the city.
Gateway Plaza—an older Irvine Co. office complex next to the car wash that’s being vacated to help the landlord comply with office-density limits in Newport Center as two new towers on the street get closer to opening—would appear a likely location for new development if the changes get approved.
Proposed revisions to the city’s plan depend on voter approval in November.
