NEWPORT BEACH : Balboa Bay Club Seeks OK for Project

Three years after having its $60-million expansion plans rejected by the City Council, the Balboa Bay Club tonight will seek approval of a smaller-scale project that calls for the demolition and reconstruction of most of the existing club facilities.

The revised plan will be considered by the Planning Commission. It calls for opening a portion of the club for public use for the first time in its 46-year history by opening a 145-room hotel.

The $25-million project also anticipates an expansion of the club from about 155,000 square feet to about 189,000 square feet. It will include new, members-only athletics facilities, a public restaurant, coffee shop, two bars, a ballroom, four conference rooms and waterfront walkways.

“The facilities are out of date,” said Dave Wooten, president of the International Bay Clubs, parent company of the Balboa Bay Club. “I think this will enable the Bay Club to continue in the next century in the same tradition as the past.” The overall project seeks to modernize the club while also providing a better view of the ocean and the harbor to residents who live on the inland bluffs overlooking the club.

“We are very pleased with the new plan,” said John Sturgess, president of the Cliff Haven Community Assn., which represents 354 residents who live within eyeshot of the Bay Club. Sturgess, however, has some concern that the demolition and construction project will be disruptive because of noise from construction and traffic congestion.

In 1991, the club’s plan to nearly double its size was rejected by the City Council on a 4-3 vote because residents on those bluffs protested that the club would block their ocean views and congest traffic through the city on West Coast Highway.

The private Balboa Bay Club was built in 1948 and has been a bay-front haven for the rich and famous. It has never been open to non-members even though it sits on city-owned property along Mariner’s Mile on West Coast Highway. As a part of the expansion, the Bay Club plans to ask for a 66-year extension of its lease with the city.

If approved, Bay Club officials say the opening stages of demolition will begin in about three to five years.