Newport Beach unveils $113 million in capital improvement plans

Next fiscal year’s tentative $113-million capital improvement budget in Newport Beach includes investing largely in facilities and streets.

The most expensive of the planned facilities projects, the $9.6-million Lido fire station at 2807 Newport Blvd., is expected to break ground in November or December.

Plans and price tags for the estimated $8-million lecture and performance hall at the Central Library and the $3.6-million Junior Lifeguards headquarters near the Balboa Pier are still being refined, but they do have committed private funding — $4 million for the lecture hall and $1.275 million for the Junior Lifeguards building.

High-profile street projects include $4.1 million in pavement rehabilitation on a 2½-mile stretch of East Coast Highway, roughly between MacArthur Boulevard and Newport Coast Drive. The Cameo Highlands area is due for $2.9 million in street repairs, and Bonita Canyon Drive is to be repaired for about $2.6 million.

Various alleys torn up by recent water main repairs and utility undergrounding will get $2.2 million in reconstruction.

A $2.2-million drainage overhaul is planned for flooding-prone Balboa Island.

Grant Howald Park in Corona del Mar is slated for a $7.3-million face lift, starting this summer.

Lido Isle is set to get its first new water main — under Via Lido Soud and Via Lido Nord — since the neighborhood was developed in the 1920s.

On the wastewater side, the city plans to spend $1 million on sewer lift station improvements.

The city also plans to spend $150,000 to replace the glass panels facing West Coast Highway at West Newport Park; $135,000 on an eelgrass survey of Newport Harbor; a $35,000 bathymetry study — measuring the water depth — of the channels near Newport Island in anticipation of future dredging; and $750,000 to rehabilitate city-owned oil wells.

Councilwoman Diane Dixon said the city is fortunate that it can spend so much on infrastructure, which she said is to the benefit of safety and property values.

“We have good staff, sharp staff that goes after external funds and manages all this very well so we continue the public investment into our community,” she said.

The City Council is scheduled to adopt the fiscal 2020-21 budget early this summer. The new fiscal year starts July 1.

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