Bel Mare retail plaza project to begin

Eight months after receiving necessary approvals, a Newport Beach developer is ready for construction to begin on a new 56,000-square-foot, high-end shopping center on Pacific Coast Highway on Mariner’s Mile.

Construction on Bel Mare, which means beautiful sea in Italian, is scheduled to begin late this year and will have a Mediterranean and Italian motif.

The two-story project will redevelop 17 lots at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Dover Drive, where there has traditionally been a high rate of turnover — something Doug Beiswenger, managing partner of developer Allied Retail Partners LLC, blamed on the month-to-month leases held by most of the businesses there.

“The property has never in 25 years been offered on anything longer than a month-to-month lease,” he said. “How much business can you set up knowing you might be kicked out in 30 days? Plenty of retailers … have been in business on Coast Highway since it was developed and never intend to leave.”

Beiswenger intends for Bel Maré — which his company estimated will be worth about $80 million — to be a mainstay in the community for at least the next 100 years due to its prime location, “timeless architecture” and the durable materials used in construction.

Allied Retail joined with Santa Ana-based Red Mountain Retail Group Inc. for the project. Architect Greg Lyon said the open plaza space and boutique shop experience will attract residents.

“We want people to stay, and they’re going to want to come back to the property,” Lyon said. “It’ll be pedestrian-friendly, with strolling and dining and shopping … reminiscent of the best shopping environments around the Mediterranean and Europe.”

The intersection’s heavy traffic and the relative difficulty of turning in or out of the property remains a concern for Councilman Tod Ridgeway.

“My concern is that there’s too much commercial square footage at this location,” said Ridgeway, who is a shopping center developer. “Traffic is going too fast by this project, number one, and number two they have underground parking, and I don’t think our citizens are ready to go … underground to park in a long, narrow shopping center.”

To combat traffic problems, the highway will be widened and the driveways will be cut from 13 to three, something Ridgeway said is a positive step for the city.

There will be about 25 shops, including one drugstore at the west end and a series of high-end boutiques and restaurants filling the rest of the space. As of Monday, they had about 50% of the property pre-leased, Beiswenger said.

Although Beiswenger said there still will be a drugstore, Ridgeway said he heard the anchor tenant pulled out of the project. Other confirmed boutiques will include Lisa Kline, Nancy Koltes At Home and Maria Martin.

Beiswenger and his camp are not concerned about competition from Fashion Island, South Coast Plaza and other neighboring shopping centers because of the tenants he said they are attracting.

“The retailers that we’re bringing in are retailers not particularly interested in locating next to the chain store-type tenants that you can go and find anywhere,” Beiswenger said. “They’re retailers that want a unique environment, they want street-front exposure and frankly they don’t want to be lost among the crowd of chain tenant retailers that occurs in a mall-type environment.”

Bel Mare is slated to open by summer 2008.