One of the perks of being a Business Journal award winner this year is an exquisite dinner hosted by Ocean 48, which Jeff and Mike Mastro, co-founders of the Mastro’s restaurant chain, opened last year in Newport Beach. A couple of months ago, the Fashion Island restaurant celebrated the Business Journal Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award winners.
Last week, the restaurant hosted three of the five May winners of the CFO of the Year Award—Jared Callister of QSC, Liyuan Woo of TOCA Football and Tony Dabbene of IHI Power Services Corp. The financial execs on June 4 were joined by the Business Journal’s Publisher Richard Reisman and Editor-in-Chief Peter J. Brennan for a two-hour feast with notable dishes that included the ribeye, the New York Strip steak the chef’s cut hanging bacon, the corn crème brûlee side and the New England lobster roll appetizer.
The next invitees to this special soiree will be the winners of our Family-Owned Business Awards, scheduled for noon this coming Thursday, June 12, at the Irvine Marriott. Tickets are still available by contacting Signature Events Manager Elyana Torres at torres@ocbj.com.
A bevy of residential projects have been proposed in and around Newport Center in recent months, with the potential of several thousand housing units being added to the area, to address the city’s lack of housing. But one notable site eyed for redevelopment for over a decade remains in limbo.
The nearly 1.3-acre site holding the Newport Beach Car Wash, located on the southern end of Newport Center Drive, sold for $12 million near the start of 2014 to a locally based development group that initially planned a 125-unit boutique hotel at the site.
When the hotel idea failed to gain traction, a 49-unit luxury condo project was proposed. That proposal was later scaled down to 29 units amid city concerns, but it never moved ahead.
Since 2016, the site at 150 Newport Center Drive has been the subject of litigation between the developer group – initially featuring former city mayor Tod Ridgeway, and real estate execs Mike Lutton and Ron Soderling – and the main financial backer of the property, Kimberly Moffatt Jones.
Jones, the ex-wife of local auto dealer exec Fletcher ‘Ted’ Jones Jr., provided the initial $6.2 million to fund the 2014 purchase, giving her a 47.5% stake in the venture. Her lawyers with Greenberg Traurig argued that Lutton, who passed away in 2018, “fraudulently induced Jones to invest in the property,” and that the development group’s managers, including Soderling, who passed in 2021, later “engaged in a calculated scheme of fraud and concealment to oust her from her ownership position.”
A May 15 Superior Court decision largely ruled in favor of Jones.
An appraisal is currently ongoing. Court documents revealed that Restoration Hardware reportedly made an $18 million offer to buy the land in late 2016 but was rebuffed, as was a housing developer that offered $22.5 million for the property. Multiple properties on the same block have traded for more than $30 million an acre in the past year.
