Dunes sale a sad ending

While it is not quite signed, sealed and delivered yet, the

long-expected sale of the Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort is all but

certain.

This week, Orange County supervisors endorsed the sale by Newport

Dunes Partnership -- headed by Tim and Annie Quinn -- to Culver City

real estate company Goldrich & Kest Industries and Tahoe Shores. Now

all that’s left is for escrow to close.

Don’t think that that moment won’t be a significant one for

Newport Beach.

Since the 1940s, the Dunes has played a central role in the

community, whether it was by providing the decades of Fourth of July

fireworks shows (unfortunately, and notably, halted this year),

offering up a calm lagoon for Newport-Mesa kids to frolic in or by

hosting dozens of charitable and community events every year.

As a family-owned and operated business with operators who live in

Newport Beach, the resort managed to thrive as a destination for

tourists while never losing its Newport Beach identity.

We could all hope that does not change. But, in effect, it already

has. Unfortunately, for the past few years the Dunes has been more a

part of the slow-growth Greenlight debate than it has been part of

the debate about what to do on a sunny summer weekend.

It went from neighborly provider of Independence Day entertainment

to developer boogeyman, simply because of plans to build a hotel that

by almost all accounts, except those of the slow-growth activists,

was going to serve the city better and provide less traffic problems

than an already approved 275-room hotel.

Those plans died as Greenlight sprung to life.

But worse, the Dunes, as it has been for generations, also died.

The close of escrow on the property will be the end.

While the Dunes itself is owned by the Evans family, proprietors

of resort hotels along the coast, Tim and Annie Quinn have for more

than a decade been the human face of the Dunes and have served the

city well. It is difficult to imagine that the new owners will care

about the community as much.

When the Quinns and the Evans turn over the keys to the resort,

they will be missed. Only time will tell just how much.