Marinapark hotel would benefit peninsula and Newport Beach

Stephen Sutherland

Greenlight Committee member Tom Billings has shown his true color;

anti-growth.

In Billings recent Letter to the Editor (“Hotel idea for peninsula

lacks potential for success,” Jan. 25), he fails to state his

expertise in the hotel business or for that matter, any business. As

a businessman that has for the past years been appointed as

co-chairperson to the National Republican Congressional Committees

Business Advisory Council and named by that committee as the 2001

Business Man of the Year for the State of California, I disagree.

As one part of the four and one half years that I have been

working on the design and programs development of the small luxury

resort “Regent Newport Beach,” I have employed the services of PKF

Consulting. PKF Consulting is considered to be one of the world’s

premier hotel consulting firms. PKF has spent countless hours working

with Regent Hotels International and me to determine the financial

feasibility of the Regent Newport Beach project. The study takes into

account many aspects of the industry including architectural and

interior design, resort amenities, location, marketing plans,

reservation systems, quality of the management company (in this case

Regent International) and a comparison of potentially competing

luxury resorts. My guess is that in Billings’ blind quest to stop

growth he will next come up with a consultant that for a few hundred

dollars will try to counter the PKF findings.

Billings claims that the Regent is not economically justifiable

because “no hotel/motel has ever been successful on the peninsula”.

First of all, the Regent is a luxury resort not a motel. Therefore

PKF Consulting did not use other peninsula properties in its

comparison. Second, Billings’s statement is absolutely untrue. He

says “no hotel/motel has ever been successful on the peninsula.” I

challenge him to prove what he says is the truth.

Billings claims that the area of the site that the resort will be

located on has a value of $90 million. Considering that the resort is

to be located only on four acres of the eight-acre site that the

Marinapark mobile homes are currently located, that indicates a land

value of $22.5 million per acre. Is this a joke? Please identify the

appraiser that determined that value. Bet you can’t do it.

Nevertheless, Billings states that keeping the mobile home park on

that valuable site makes sense. Please remember that out of the

existing 56 mobile homes on the site, non-Newport Beach residents use

41 of those units as vacation homes.

Billings further claims that with the mobile home park, “beach

access is available and easily accessible.” This is untrue, as the

mobile home park has installed gates at each entry to the beach

boardwalk to discourage public access and planted hedges the full

length of the boardwalk to further hinder public access. The Regent

will remove these gates and hedges and will install signs encouraging

public access.

The planned Regent Newport Beach has been referred to as a “gem,”

a “landmark” for the Balboa Peninsula and the city of Newport Beach

and the “shot in the arm” this part of the Balboa Peninsula needs for

revitalization. Heaven forbid a tattoo parlor or body-piercing shop

is replaced with a resort wear boutique because a new type of tourist

is on the peninsula with a high level of spendable income. The Regent

will greatly beautify this area of the peninsula.

As a condition of the resort’s approvals, the adjacent Las Arenas

Park will be greatly improved. The tennis courts at Las Arenas Park

will be rebuilt with modern lighting for night play and will be

public. A new Girl Scout House will be built at Las Arenas Park and

will have a commercial quality kitchen, air conditioning, expanded

outdoor play areas and a state of the art security system to help

keep the girls safe in today’s world. The project will provide a new

community center for area residents. As part of the project, the

resort will work with leaders of the adjacent American Legion Post

291 to remodel and improve their existing building.

Greenlight leaders have stated that a good project is one that is

low-density, low-rise, low in traffic generation and high in revenue

generation to the city of Newport Beach. The Regent meets each and

every one of those criteria yet Greenlight member Billings wants the

site to remain a mobile home park for the benefit of 15 residents and 41 non-residents that have vacation homes there.

Today the state of California is attacking the pocketbooks of

cities to recover $34 billion in state deficits. This will include

millions of dollars a year taken from the city of Newport Beach.

Without additional revenues coming into the city, we as residents

will certainly lose services. Will it be trash collection, road and

sewer maintenance, maintenance and programs for our existing public

parks or will it be cutbacks in fire and police protection? The

overall revenues to the city from the Regent are expected to be $2.7

million per year, $27 million per decade. I believe this will make

the small luxury resort, Regent Newport Beach, the largest single

point revenue generator this city government has ever known.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Stephen Sutherland is a partner in Regent Newport

Beach, which is proposing a hotel for the Marinapark site on the

Balboa Peninsula, and a Newport Beach resident.