Residents wary of medical building

The Newport Beach City Council on Tuesday will consider approving plans for a 25,000-square-foot medical building on Old Newport Boulevard.

Some residents in the Newport Heights neighborhood that overlooks the site of the proposed two-story structure say the building is just too big.

Residents on Holmwood Drive claim that the medical offices will bring more traffic and parking problems to their neighborhood, which is already overwhelmed with overflow parking from nearby businesses and beachgoers.

“We’ve lived here for 11 years, and we’ve seen [the parking] get worse and worse and worse,” said Holmwood Drive resident Frederick Rawlins, who lives a few hundred feet from the site of the proposed building. “I’m really against this.”

Jay Vanderwal’s house on Holmwood overlooks Newport Boulevard, but that view would be completely blocked by the two-story medical building, he said.

“Not only me, but my neighbors too will see that massive building there,” said Vanderwal, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1995. “It looks likes a big commercial area with two levels of offices and all kinds of glass. It’s going to have a lot of visual impact on the neighborhood.”

The building would take up twice the allowable building space permitted in the area under the city’s general plan, Newport Beach Planning Director David Lepo said.

But the Planning Commission has approved designs for the medical offices, saying the size of the structure isn’t unreasonable. Now it’s up to the City Council to decide whether the building is too large.

Irvine-based cardiologist Emanuel Shaoulian is building the medical offices, which would replace some old office buildings, and an apartment and a parking lot at 340, 332 and 328 Old Newport Boulevard.

Attempts to reach Shaoulian and project architect Mike Swain were unsuccessful.