Paul ClintonWhile local hoteliers debate about how...

Paul Clinton

While local hoteliers debate about how much business they’ll lose to

a new Huntington Beach resort, one thing seems certain. Newport

Beach, and perhaps Costa Mesa, will see more traffic as a result.

The Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort and Spa, a sprawling

mini-city oriented toward drawing more corporate events, opened in

late January.

“There’s no question our guests will be shopping all over Orange

County,” said Steve Bone, the resort’s affable co-owner. “Our

customers will shop at South Coast Plaza and Fashion Island.”

Newport Beach officials, not surprisingly, aren’t looking forward

to the increased traffic traveling southbound on Pacific Coast

Highway into Newport Beach for the city’s top-flight restaurants,

pleasure harbor or ritzy shopping.

To Mayor Steve Bromberg, Newport Beach gets all of the bad and

none of the good from the new hotel.

“We will lose out on that business, but we will get their

traffic,” Bromberg said. “That is unfortunate.”

Debate has begun over the city’s 2000 approval of the Greenlight

Initiative, which requires a two-thirds voter majority to approve any

new large-scale hotel or other development within the city.

The initiative was passed, essentially, as a response to the

Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort’s earlier plans to add a conference

center.

But Phil Arst, a Greenlight representative, said Bromberg’s

comments about the Hyatt were a “self-defeating statement.”

“The main bulk of that traffic will be in Huntington Beach,” Arst

said. “If that hotel were in Newport Beach, it would be far worse.”