Two in talks for old City Hall site

Even as Newport Beach city officials broke ground this week on a new $128-million civic center on Avocado Avenue, plans on what to do with the old City Hall site on the Balboa Peninsula remained up in the air.

Newport Beach City Manager Dave Kiff said he’ll feel sorry for the Starbucks employees across the street when the 240 people who work at the old City Hall at 3300 Newport Blvd. clean out their desks and move to the new building in late 2012.

“We really are an economic engine for this area,” Kiff said.

Whatever happens to the land, no decision will be made without ample opportunity for public input, said Councilman Mike Henn, whose district encompasses the Balboa Peninsula.

“No matter what happens, it’s going to be a controversial issue, so we want to make sure we have as much factual input as we can,” Henn said.

Newport Beach is working with two the largest land owners in the Via Lido area to come up with a unified plan on what to do with the old, roughly 4-acre City Hall site.

Vornado Realty Trust, which owns the Lido Marina Village shopping center, and the Fritz Duda Co., which owns Via Lido Plaza, are working on several possible ideas for the area.

“We want to proceed with a common vision in an integrated fashion,” Henn said.

Calls to the Fritz Duda Co. were not immediately returned Thursday. A representative from Vornado Realty Trust said the company does not comment on potential projects as a matter of policy.

The two landowners will share some of the cost of hiring a professional land planner to develop potential designs, but what will be included in those plans has not yet been decided, Henn said.

As of yet, the city has no plans to sell the roughly 4-acre municipal site on Newport Boulevard, Kiff said.

“Arguably, it’s in our best interest to keep it — that gives us the maximum flexibility on what goes there,” he said.

The area around City Hall functions as a gateway to the Balboa Peninsula, said local real estate broker Craig Batley.

Batley said he supported the city working together with the other land owners to develop one, cohesive plan for the area, no matter the plan.

“I’m in favor of a unified approach on that project,” Batley said. “It would be better to have one unified project with all three landowners working together.”

City Hall’s departure from the Peninsula is just one of several cosmetic changes the area will undergo over the next five years.

The Newport Harbor Nautical Museum has plans for a massive overhaul in the Balboa Village area that call for a new nautical museum, a large theater, weather station, cafe, gift shop and curvilinear dock with enough space for tall ships.

The city has already negotiated to buy the old Balboa Village Market, a landmark brick building on East Balboa Boulevard, for $3.5 million.

The building will be bulldozed for a three-story parking garage.