NEWPORT BEACH : City to Weigh Plans for Balboa Bay Club
The City Council tonight will consider approval of conceptual plans for expanding the Balboa Bay Club.
The council vote comes a month after the Planning Commission voted unanimously to grant approval to the $25-million project, which would entail demolishing and rebuilding much of the club. The hearing tonight is not expected to draw much opposition.
“We think we have a very good project here,” said Dave Wooten, president of the Bay Club.
The vote would specifically approve the Bay Club’s application for changing the zoning of its leased land from residential to a planned community, approving a study of the traffic impacts of the project and permitting the club to exceed the basic 26-foot height limit on property along Coast Highway.
The project calls for an expansion of the club from about 155,000 square feet to about 189,000 square feet and adding a new members-only athletic facility, a public restaurant, coffee shop, two bars, a ballroom, four conference rooms and bay-front walkways.
The overall project seeks to give the club a badly needed overhaul while also providing a better view of the ocean and the harbor to residents who live on the inland bluffs overlooking the club, say club officials.
The private Balboa Bay Club, which was built in 1948, has long been home to the rich and famous. It has never been open to the general public, though it sits on city-owned property along Mariners Mile on West Coast Highway.
If the plans are approved, Bay Club officials predict that the opening stages of demolition will take place within three to five years.
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