The Irvine Co. Mulls Building Luxury Hotel at Newport Coast

The Irvine Co. is considering building a 200-room luxury hotel at Newport Coast, potentially adding a formidable new entrant in the crowded race to develop top-end resorts along the Southern California coast.

The site, owned by the big developer and long zoned for a hotel, looks out to Santa Catalina Island from the hills just south of Corona del Mar. A resort hotel would provide a final piece for the mix of projects at Newport Coast, the most lavish of the Irvine Co.’s trademark planned communities.

The proposed luxury hotel would cater to guests of local residents, high-end business travelers and golf-minded vacationers, company officials said.

With the local and national economies strong, many hotel and tourism experts are bullish about the prospects for luxury coastal hotels in Orange County. But they also acknowledge a danger of overbuilding such projects in the area, traditionally a destination for less upscale family vacationers.

Irvine Co. officials said they were aware of that danger and were addressing it in their feasibility and planning studies for the hotel.

“We view the Newport Coast site as the most spectacular site between the Loew’s [Beach Hotel] in Santa Monica and the San Diego County line,” said Irvine Co. spokesman Paul Kranhold, noting that the company hasn’t decided whether to proceed with the project. “But we’re also studying the market carefully, making sure there’s not a glut of rooms coming on the market.”

The hotel would be situated just above the company’s Pelican Hill Golf Club on a site originally earmarked for a Hyatt hotel. Plans for the Chicago-based chain to develop a hotel dissolved in the state’s long economic downturn earlier this decade.

Another hotel site, across Newport Coast Drive to the west, went on a similar hiatus during the recession. The Walt Disney Co. announced a time-share development there, then backed out, and Marriott International Corp. now plans to build its own 500-unit time-share resort complex on the property.

Also planned or underway at Newport Coast are a clubhouse with meeting spaces that could be used by hotel guests, multimillion-dollar estates, hundreds of lower-priced but still expensive homes, and a retail strip along Coast Highway.

The Irvine Co. previously has built two Orange County hotels, the Hyatt Regency Irvine and the Four Seasons in Newport Beach. Both are aimed primarily at business travelers.

The highest-profile resort hotel in the area is the 393-room Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point.

Possible locations for other resort hotels along the Orange County coast include:

* Dana Point Headlands, where a residential-hotel complex including a “spa resort” with 100 rooms would be built. Various proposals have drawn hot debate over the years, and city officials have complained that the latest version is too similar to ones that have been rejected.

* Treasure Island mobile home park in Laguna Beach, which would be redeveloped as the Resort at Laguna Beach, a residential and hotel complex that would include up to 275 first-class guest rooms and villas. An environmental report on the project has been approved by the City Council but has yet to go before the state Coastal Commission.

* Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach, where redevelopment plans for the prestigious but aging complex include a 150-room luxury hotel that would be available for public use.

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Coastal Hotels

1. Newport Coast site under consideration by the Irvine Co. for 200-room luxury resort hotel.

2. Newport Coast site, east of Newport Coast Drive. 500 Marriott time-share units. 3. Balboa Bay Club, Newport Beach. Redevelopment plans include a 150-room luxury hotel.

4. Treasure Island mobile home park, Laguna Beach. To be redeveloped as the Resort at Laguna Beach, a mix of residential and hotel uses including up to 275 first-class guest rooms and villas.

5. Ritz-Carlton. 393 rooms at existing five-star resort hotel in Dana Point.

6. Dana Point Headlands. Proposed site of residential-hotel complex including “spa resort” with 100 rooms.