Last weekend marked the notable return of the Lido Theater at the Via Lido Plaza after undergoing a multi-million-dollar restoration and adding famed Hollywood director McG, who is best know for directing “Charlie’s Angels’” movies in 2000 and 2003, as its new operator.
The overhaul puts the spotlight on yet an-other revitalization project in the Newport Beach neighborhoods of Lido Marina Village and the Balboa Peninsula.
“It’s a domino effect,” Bob Olson of R.D. Olson told the Business Journal.
Olson has set the standard with the center-piece of this area – Lido House Hotel, which opened in 2018 as part of the Marriott’s Autograph Collection. The 130-room boutique hotel replaced the former city hall and has injected a major hospitality element to the area.
Local operators have pointed to the current management of the Lido Marina Village and its recent renovations as another catalyst to the upgrades.
Property owner DJM Capital has polished the almost 78,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space at the center since its acquisition in 2013, and even added Redwood West as a new owner-partner in February.
Olson said that there were concerns from the local community when city hall moved that people would no longer have a reason to come down and the area’s vitality would be lost.
He noted that it also went hand in hand with DJM’s overhaul of the Marina Village at the time.
“It would be curative to the community to have the activity of visitors and restaurants, and it would spark the renaissance of the Lido area,” Olson said. “And it did.”
Across an alley from the Lido House is the Via Lido Plaza, an 87,976-square-foot complex that includes the Lido Theater as well as the Michelin-honored Fable & Spirit Restaurant and the popular Bear Flag Fish Company.
“With Lido House next door, we have created an entertainment and hospitality district that will serve Newport Beach and Orange County well,” said Fritz Duda, owner of the Via Lido Plaza.
The area’s rejuvenation is also occurring further down the Balboa Peninsula where Chartwell Real Estate Development in 2021 purchased the iconic-but run down Balboa Fun Zone.
Chartwell Operating Partner Henry Pyle led the acquisition of the block-long, 34,200-square-foot mixed-use water-front property on behalf of the Pyle family, who have been Newport Beach residents since the 1960s.
The Costa Mesa firm has been refreshing the area with a couple of new tenants, new paint and infrastructure repairs. It says it’s developing plans for a revitalized Fun Zone, which will hopefully be revealed in the new year.
Lido: More than a Movie Theater
The Lido Theater, a single screen auditorium built in 1939 and designed by architect Clifford Balch, has been closed since late 2019 for refurbishment. The Lido and the plaza were originally owned and developed by The Griffith Co. until current owner Fritz Duda Co. acquired the property in 1986.
Duda, who has been the theater’s No. 1 de-fender, said he has tried to restore the 7,992-square-foot space from time to time over the years.
“It’s difficult to make economics work for a single-screen theater and hard to find anyone to operate the theater,” he told the Business Journal.
He realized in 2019 that The Lido could serve as more than a movie theater.
The theater had hosted several benefit con-certs in the last couple decades, including performances by Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers.
The audience turnout helped Duda decide to turn the space into a multi-use venue better outfitted for live entertainment.
After four years of restoring the building to its original art deco design and upgrading its infrastructure, Duda named the Newport Beach-based River Jetty Restaurant Group as the theater’s new operator.
The hospitality firm is run by director and producer Joseph McGinty Nichol, better known as McG, and his business partner Jordan Otterbein. The firm’s portfolio consists of local dining concepts including A Restaurant, A Crystal Cove and CdM Restaurant.
McG Grew up Watching Movies at Lido
River Jetty plans to bring a mix of live music, first run and classic movies, lectures and other events to The Lido following its re-cent updates.
“It’s brilliant [to] bring the entertainment value of what the theater was originally in-tended to do,” Olson said. “It’s one more domino to drop.”
The single-screen theater hosted a community open house Oct. 5 with a performance from Sugar Ray. It will officially reopen for screenings during the 25th annual Newport Beach Film Festival later this month.
Duda was looking for a non-traditional operator to take over The Lido and usher in a new era of entertainment.
He met McG, who grew up in Orange County, through a tennis friend and found that the potential partner held a similar passion about the theater as he did.
“There wasn’t a second choice,” Duda said. McG told the Business Journal that his frequent childhood movie-going visits to the Lido inspired him to launch a career in the film and music industry.
“I saw ‘Midnight Run’ at The Lido five times in one week,” he said. It’s where “I fantasized about a life larger than my own. I was in Orange County, and I thought that Hollywood was a million miles away.”
He has been an executive producer on several television shows such as “The O.C.”, “Lethal Weapon” and “Supernatural.” McG has also directed and produced several music videos starring bands Smash Mouth and Korn.
McG, who now resides in Orange, is currently working on a film with actor Chris Pratt.
Outside of Hollywood ties, he has opened a series of restaurants alongside his business part-ner and fellow Newport Beach local, Otterbein, since 2007.
The duo and their firm River Jetty run five restaurants, four of which are in OC.
“He’s got all the tools to do this right,” Duda said.
“My career started in Newport Beach as a music producer and video director, and while I now focus on producing movies, operating The Lido is the perfect intersection of my passions – movies, music and hospitality,” McG said.
From Ted Talks to Live Music Acts
The Lido Theater is McG and Otterbein’s first venue operation, and they aim to establish it as the “town hall” of Newport Beach.
“Orange County doesn’t get a lot of credit for artistic contributions, and I’d like to rectify that and make sure that the arts stay very much alive for people of all ages,” McG said.
Not only will the theater’s program lineup include classic films, thanks to the 35-millimeter film projectors McG plans to install, but the local community can expect shows of all kinds from touring comedians to Ted Talks and Bloomberg events to live music acts and screenings with celebrity guests.
Otterbein added that McG might want to host his own film premieres at the theater.
McG’s plans include having chorale groups perform during the holiday season to occur dur-ing the Newport Beach Boat Parade. Other than continuing work with the annual Newport Beach Film Festival, he also wants to join forces with local film schools like at Chapman University.
A Market’s Culinary Director Shelly Register will oversee the concession offerings and set up a more elevated food program for the theater.
It was a busy week for Otterbein and McG. Both have also been revealed as the first restaurant partners to sign on for a spot at the upcoming OCVibe redevelopment, backed by the Samuelis, in Anaheim.
“I look at every [project] the same,” McG said. “I always put the same hat on, where I ask myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if?’ And then I try to populate my world with really smart people to help me achieve the objective.”
