NEWPORT ART MUSEUM EXPANSION TO BE STUDIED

The Newport Harbor Art Museum and the Irvine Co. have commissioned an outside firm to conduct a feasibility study on plans to expand the museum at its present site.

Museum and company officials announced Thursday that they have commissioned Altoon & Porter Architects of Los Angeles to conduct the study, which would cost $25,000 and is expected to be completed by April.

“We cannot at this time specify what the costs or final look will be. We have given them (Altoon & Porter) any number of options, including expansion of the city library branch in that same locale,” said Kevin Consey, the museum’s director.

The museum has been housed since 1977 in a $900,000, 23,000-square-foot structure on a two-acre site donated by the Irvine Co. Building a new museum structure of up to 77,000 square feet on an adjacent 3 1/2-acre vacant site, also owned by the Irvine Co., is under consideration.

In addition, a planned 400-seat auditorium would be used for the museum’s present programs of lectures, film showings, concerts and community meetings, said Consey. Expansion of the city’s Newport Center library branch--now on a two-acre site next to the museum--is another key element being studied, he added.

The proposed “cultural complex” in Newport Center has been submitted by the Irvine Co. for approval by city officials.

Consey said expansion at the museum’s present Newport Center site has been given “top priority” by the museum board. Previously announced potential sites in Irvine and Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza sector are now “highly unlikely” choices, he said.

A fund-raising feasibility study for the museum by the Oram Group firm in New York is also to be finished by April, said Consey.

Rough estimates for museum expansion have ranged from basic revamping costing $5 million to a full-scaled construction and endowment plan that would cost $50 million.