Council rejects city hall in park

NEWPORT BEACH -- City hall may be moved from the Balboa Peninsula to Newport Center, but it won’t end up on a park site next to the central library — at least not by a City Council decision.

The council decided late Tuesday to pursue building a new city hall where a bus terminal now stands on Avocado Avenue and not at a park site a half-mile away.

A new, third option also emerged: an unspecified spot in the 500 block of Newport Center Drive. Councilman Ed Selich told the council the Irvine Co. has agreed to talk about making a site in that area available to the city, but little else is known about it.

In a 5-2 vote, council members agreed to negotiate with the Orange County Transportation Authority and the Irvine Co. for possible city hall sites. Councilman Don Webb and Councilwoman Leslie Daigle cast the dissenting votes.

Councilman Steve Rosansky qualified his vote by saying he believes the city should keep negotiations open with the Irvine Co., although he prefers the park site for city hall.

The council was faced with a choice between building on the transportation authority’s bus terminal, at an estimated $65 million, or a city-owned park site next to the central library, expected to cost $55 million. Those prices would buy a 72,000-square-foot city hall, parking and related construction work.

But the difference between the two locations is not as simple as $10 million. Council members have pointed out that the bus park-and-ride would have to be moved and the parcel bought from the transportation authority to make that plan work, and if the city built on the park site it would have to replace roughly 3 acres of parkland.

“As I see our issue, it is which parcel best serves our needs for city hall,” said Councilman Don Webb, who wants to put city hall on the park parcel. “We don’t own or control any portion of the [bus] site north of San Miguel [Drive].”

Councilman Keith Curry, who wants to build on the park-and-ride site, said the cost differences are probably bigger than the study showed, with the park site coming out more expensive.

“Why should we rip our community apart over which block of Avocado [Avenue] city hall is [on],” Curry said.

With an aging City Hall complex on their hands, council members have been debating how and where to replace it since at least 2005.

Dozens of sites were studied and fell away because they didn’t work for one reason or another, but one that kept coming back is the 12.8-acre park parcel, which is about a half mile from the transportation authority site.

A majority of the council had rejected the park site, citing a 1992 agreement that reserved the land for a park “in perpetuity.” When city leaders begin negotiations with the Orange County Transportation Authority and the Irvine Co., which owns the site proposed for the new bus terminal, a proposed ballot measure that would put city hall on the park site will still be hanging over them.

Proponents are collecting signatures in the hope of getting their issue on the February ballot.

Opponents criticized the ballot measure Tuesday, saying it is legally flawed and doesn’t provide for a park on the space city hall wouldn’t use.