NEWPORT BEACH : Panel OKs Expansion of Balboa Bay Club

The California Coastal Commission has given the go-ahead to a Balboa Bay Club expansion plan that may cost as much as $30 million.

The conceptual plan won city approval late last year and was the subject of special legislation to permit semiprivate operations.

The commission voted unanimously March 9 to support the renovation, which will allow the club to continue operating 144 apartments while opening 65% of the facilities in the posh, private club to the public.

The renovation plans include adding a restaurant, athletic facilities, a ballroom, four conference rooms, a coffee shop and two bars. The club will increase from 155,000 square feet to 189,000 square feet under plans that call for newly designed patios, a central courtyard, a swimming pool and glass-covered walks.

Club owner Beverly Ray said architecture for the new club will be in “very simple, classical lines. Nothing extreme. An architectural style that will be timeless.”

Since it opened in 1948, the Balboa Bay Club has operated at the same site, 1221 W. Coast Highway, occupying land that the state later deeded to the city as a public trust. The city receives 100% of the lease revenue.

City Atty. Robert Burnham said the city received about $850,000 in revenue last year and expects to receive about $1 million this year under the terms of the lease.

The city and club are negotiating a new, long-term lease whose start date is still uncertain. A recently negotiated deal with the state Lands Commission will force the city to share 5% of future lease revenue in the first five years after the club’s new lease is approved, and 10% thereafter, in exchange for allowing the private portions of the club to remain on public lands.