To Be Walking by the Docks of the Bay

It is an idea that has been bandied about for nearly a decade: a waterfront walkway along West Coast Highway, overlooking the sailboats on Newport Beach’s Lido Channel.

The area is now a hodgepodge of boating-related businesses, restaurants, a condominium building and strip malls. Here and there, a haphazard walkway snakes behind the buildings, dead-ending into water at some points.

“There is no pizazz there,” said Newport Beach Mayor Tod W. Ridgeway.

Today, Ridgeway and the rest of the City Council will begin discussing the challenges of bringing new life to Mariner’s Mile, an area that boardwalk proponents say could become a marquee shopping and entertainment destination.

The meeting also will mark the council’s first official consideration of a project that so far has been a dream for some city leaders, including Ridgeway, a former planning commissioner.

“People have been talking about it for years, but it never went anywhere,” he said. “The idea that it has come this far blows my mind.”

The proposed Mariner’s Mile Waterfront Walkway still faces several obstacles, including engineering challenges and opposition from some of the local merchants who worry about the increased foot traffic and compatibility with boating activities.

But proponents say the ocean boardwalk is a natural fit for Newport Beach in a region that has historically underutilized its coastal amenities.

In February, Los Angeles officials broke ground on an ambitious project to revitalize the city’s San Pedro port area, once a thriving tourist attraction in the 1960s and early 1970s.

“Los Angeles is a port town, not unlike Seattle or San Francisco,” said Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district includes San Pedro.

“But we are very disconnected from water.”

From Santa Monica to Laguna Beach, the coast is filled with popular beaches, but there are very few landmark commercial and entertainment venues, Hahn and others say.

In San Pedro, the Port of Los Angeles will spend $6 million to build a promenade south of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in the hope of attracting visitors and eventually businesses.

In Newport Beach, officials envision a wooden walkway from Newport Boulevard’s Arches bridge to the Balboa Bay Club, about a mile east.

There are also proposals for a parking structure on the north side of West Coast Highway, near Riverside Avenue, with a pedestrian overpass that would connect with the boardwalk.

One of the challenges will be to design a contiguous waterfront pathway connecting the landmarks. Mariner’s Mile developed without much of a master plan, city officials say, and the public right of way along the water is spotty.

In some instances, the city will have to work with property owners to gain access.

In other spots, where buildings jut out to the edge of the bay, the boardwalk will have to be built over the water.

That means boat slips would have to be moved farther into the channel, which would require state and federal approval.

Without those approvals, the city would have to buy the boat slips, which could add between $1 million to $3 million to the roughly $10 million the project is expected to cost, according to a feasibility study the council will review today.

“There are tons of variables,” said Lloyd Dalton, a city public works engineer and project manager. “It is an interesting project but not an easy project at all.”

Dalton said that approvals to move the boat slips could take anywhere between three to 10 years and that construction of the boardwalk would take about a year.

“I think it is definitely worth the trouble,” said Councilman Don Webb, the city’s former public works director who now represents the area.

“People will say, ‘Gosh, it will take you forever to do it,’ but the city will be around forever, and we can get this done.”

What Webb and Ridgeway envision is a cozier, more intimate version of New York’s Coney Island, with restaurants and stores connected by a 10-foot-wide boardwalk.

Project proponents often point to the San Antonio River Walk, a tourist attraction and Texas landmark credited with reviving the local economy.

“We want to open this thing up to the public,” Ridgeway said. “People come anyway (to existing restaurants and other businesses). Why not give them a better experience?”

Some merchants, including restaurant owners, welcome the foot traffic, but others aren’t sold on the idea.

Nancy Dixon owns Larson’s Shipyard, a boat repair business that has a launch ramp into the channel.

The city has proposed building a drawbridge to carry pedestrians over the launch area so Dixon’s business would not be affected.

“I really like the idea,” Dixon joked. “The part I really enjoy is the liability.”

She said having pedestrians in an area with many boats and related activities could be dangerous.

City officials, for the most part, support the concept, but some say the city must proceed carefully.

“It isn’t one of those projects that you can kick off with a ribbon-cutting,” said Councilman Gary B. Adams. “It is something that will be evolving.”