Shopping center idea rouses worries

Those who live near Mariner’s Mile leery of a new traffic light on already congested West Coast Highway .A shopping center planned for Mariner’s Mile is creating a stir in Newport Beach, with some residents afraid the traffic light included in the project will worsen congestion on West Coast Highway.

The city’s planning commission tonight will discuss the 56,000-square-foot center being developed by Mariner’s Mile Gateway LLC. Plans include a drugstore as the anchor tenant, medical offices, retail shops and some sort of quick, casual eatery. The center could have between 300 and 350 parking spaces, most of which would be underground.

The project would replace existing businesses between Dover Drive and the McDonald’s restaurant at 700 W. Coast Highway. A number of existing driveways would be eliminated, a traffic light would be installed just east of the McDonald’s, and raised medians would be built in front of the project for traffic control, said Jim Campbell, a senior planner with the city.

Councilman Don Webb, whose district includes Mariner’s Mile, said this is the first time someone has been able to combine enough land parcels to create a development with a unifying theme, and he’s excited about it.

“The time I’ve been with the city, that block of properties has really never redeveloped,” he said. “It’s just continued to exist. It was never quite as high quality as I felt it could be there.”

Webb said it’s a better alternative than the multiple, unregulated driveways that exist now.

But the prospect of a new traffic light looks to some residents like a source of further delays to what they say is an already congested stretch of road.

The existing stoplights -- at the Balboa Bay Club, Dover and Bayside drives -- aren’t properly synchronized, said Phil Drachman, who lives in nearby Dover Shores. Adding another light will slow traffic further, he said, which is one way to encourage people to stop and shop.

“The way you create a destination point is you stop cars,” Drachman said.

“I am not against the development of that property, but the way it’s designed, the way it’s laid out, the way it’s being driven though the city is for commercial purposes only.”

Councilman Tod Ridgeway’s concerns have more to do with whether the shopping center will survive over the long term.

A developer himself, Ridgeway said he supports property rights and wouldn’t try to block the project. But he likened the proposed Mariner’s Mile Gateway to the half-empty Triangle Square mall in Costa Mesa, which he once predicted was too intense for the area.

“I hate to say I was right about Triangle Square, but I was,” Ridgeway said.

“Is a convenience drugstore going to keep a shopper there? I don’t think so.... What’s the draw that’s going to bring the shopper into a 200-car parking garage that’s probably dark and keep them there?”

The planning commission will discuss the project tonight with a decision expected at a later meeting.

IF YOU GO

* WHAT: Newport Beach Planning Commission meeting

* WHEN: 6:30 tonight

* WHERE: City Council chambers, City Hall, 3300 Newport Blvd.

* INFO: Call (949)644-3200 or go to www.city .newport-beach.ca.us20060105isloa1ncKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)The Newport planning commission will discuss a proposal to build a shopping center on Mariner’s Mile.