DANA POINT : Owner of Proposed Resort Forfeits Deposit

The Japanese owner of 225 acres along Salt Creek envisioned as a Pebble Beach-style resort have forfeited a $700,000 deposit for failing to meet today’s deadline to provide the city a security bond for local park improvements.

Officials of Monarch Bay Resort Co., the California subsidiary of Tokyo-based Nippon Shinpan Co. Ltd., however, insist the future of the resort is not in jeopardy.

The forfeiture comes a week after the City Council unanimously denied the company’s request for a three-year extension of the deadline to provide security for $4.7 million in improvements to Sea Terrace Community Park.

The city will take the deposit as well as 21 acres of parkland that was to have been developed as part of the $500-million golf, hotel and residential resort project proposed for the 225 acres.

Only a golf course--the 18-hole Monarch Beach Golf Links--and a seven-acre first phase of the park are currently located on the property.

“I don’t think granting an extension would have resulted in the city getting anything more than we are getting doing it this way,” Councilwoman Karen Lloreda said. She added that she hoped the $700,000 would be used for the park improvements that Monarch Bay Resort Co. was to have made.

The resort project was approved by the City Council in 1992 but has been delayed because of a lack of financing for the 400-room hotel portion of the plan, said Ben Cagle, a spokesman for Monarch Bay Resort. The city agreement stipulated that the developers build the hotel before they proceed with the residential and commercial portions of the project.

Cagle said company officials decided that without assurances that the project could begin, it made no sense to move forward with the funding for park improvements.