DANA POINT : Specifics Unveiled on Resort Hotel Plan

Less is better in posh Monarch Bay, at least judging by the reception a Japanese developer received this week when the latest plans for a long-awaited coastal resort were unveiled.

Nippon Shinpan Co. Ltd. on Wednesday presented the city with plans for a new, scaled-back version of a much-debated hotel and luxury home resort spread over 225 acres of a 232-acre parcel that the firm owns near Coast Highway and Niguel Road. The firm estimated that the project will cost $300 million to $500 million.

The new plans won a warm welcome from neighbors in the city’s Monarch Bay district, who jammed City Hall for the firm’s one-hour presentation.

The proposal calls for one hotel, instead of the two approved in the mid-1980s, and for luxury, “villa-style” residences to replace commercial development.

The plans “will greatly enhance our community and its property values,” said Tom Crump, president of the Monarch Beach Civic Assn. “Our community wants and needs this development.”

Still to be convinced are city planners and City Council members, who have previously expressed approval of a denser plan that would have meant more money for city coffers. The original plan called for 1,100 hotel rooms, which would have generated more in bed taxes for the city than the 400 rooms now suggested, plus commercial development that would have brought in sales tax revenues.

“The project at first flush looks magnificent,” Councilwoman Eileen Krause said. “But there are real dollars-and-cents issues here.”

Mike Sato, a general manager of Nippon Shinpan, the Japanese credit card company that hopes to build and own the resort, warned that money for the development cannot withstand delays or changes.

“All over the world, bigger projects are dying,” Sato said. “This is a package plan we have studied for many months. If this package plan is approved, we can assure you a first-class resort.”

The development proposal presented by Nippon Shinpan on Wednesday includes:

* A five-star, 400-room hotel and spa with a Mediterranean theme, designed by Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, the same architectural firm that designed the Ritz-Carlton on the ocean side of Coast Highway across from the Nippon Shinpan site.

* A 13-acre extension of the Links at Monarch Beach golf course, under the direction of its original designer, Robert Trent Jones II, including an amphitheater-style 18th hole meant to lure professional golf tournaments.

* $5.3 million for the 21.5-acre Sea Terrace Community Park at Niguel Road and Coast Highway, including botanical gardens, a pavilion, an outdoor amphitheater and public viewing areas.

* Single-family and attached residences, 100 of them surrounding the hotel in one part of the resort and 138 in another section near Monarch Bay Plaza.

The residences were called the key to the financial viability of the project by Ron Holecek, a principal with Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, who made the presentation with Phillip R. Schwartze, the resort’s planning consultant.

“If the residences don’t occur, the five-star hotel doesn’t occur,” Holecek said. “The number of units must offset the extraordinary cost this project will incur. . . . The residences are absolutely essential.”

Those residences will be “villa-like” in quality, with gates surrounding the community and the hotel’s amenities available by direct telephone line, Sato said.

The presentation won the initial backing of at least one council member, Judy Curreri, who said the plan is better than previous proposals.

“I am pleased to see the words time share are not part of this proposal,” Curreri said. “Dollars and cents are not how I measure what’s good for the city. . . . For me, it’s quality of life.”