Newport Beach City Council supports plans for 50-meter pool at Lower Castaway Park
After hearing competing visions for the development of Lower Castaways Park, members of the Newport Beach City Council unanimously expressed support for a plan to build a public swimming pool complex on the site during a study session Tuesday.
The proposed project is in its earliest phases of planning and would need to go through at least a year of study, design, permitting and review by the public and city officials before potentially breaking ground in the winter of 2026, according to city staff reports. Initial estimates suggest it could cost around $47.1 million to build and about $1.5 million per year to operate.
The city does not currently have its own public pool. It instead has an agreement to share swimming facilities owned by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District at Corona Del Mar and Newport Harbor high schools. The proposed facility would allow Newport Beach to consolidate and expand recreational aquatic services for residents and visitors while giving high school athletes more opportunities to practice at their campus pools.
“I think about individuals like [Olympic swimmer] Aaron Peirsol who had to go to Costa Mesa or Irvine to find a place to swim,” Mayor Pro Tem Joe Stapleton said during Tuesday’s study session. “So there’s no doubt we can do better serving the residents here in Newport Beach when it comes to community pools. I think around half the cities in Orange County have a pool. It’s quite remarkable Newport Beach does not.”
The main component of the proposed aquatics facility would be a 50-meter pool, which would be large enough to host a full game of water polo plus multiple lanes of recreational swimming simultaneously. It would also feature a heated therapy pool that could accommodate water aerobics, aqua yoga and injury rehab programs. There would also be a 360-square-foot splash pad for children to play in, meeting rooms and a hand launch area so kayaks can access Newport Harbor.
The facility would be built at Lower Castaways Park, a 4-acre plot at the intersection of Dover Drive and Pacific Coast Highway. It’s the site of the original wharf and landing for the settlement that would eventually become Newport Beach.
“This has been a fallow piece of dirt sitting here for decades, going back and forth with no community vision,” Newport Harbor Commissioner Don Yahn said. “I’m very excited there’s vision tonight.”
Yahn thanked members of the community for the effort put into planning for the swimming facility. But he and fellow Harbor Commissioner Rudy Svrcek suggested the city should build an aquarium at Lower Castaways Park instead.
The facility they proposed as an alternative would feature live animal exhibits, shallow touch pools that would allow visitors to reach in and feel fish and other marine species, an amphitheater facing the bay for lectures and concerts, outdoor sculptures and a museum space. There would also be an area to launch ecological kayak tours of the bay.
Svrcek and Yahn suggested that the educational potential of an aquarium would serve a broader swathe of the community than a pool and may be a stronger draw for students on class trips and other visitors. Early estimates for the project they put forth ranged from $60.7 million to over $79 million.
Another alternative was presented by architect and longtime resident Don Jacobs, which he described as a “less ambitious” educational facility compared to what the harbor commissioners had offered. Like theirs, Jacobs’ plan would include touch pools, an amphitheater, a kayak launch ramp and outdoor sculptures. Its defining feature would be a spherical theater to create a “360 underwater experience.”
Svrcek, Yahn and six members of the public who came out in support of an aquarium argued that it would serve a broader portion of the community. Some also said such a facility would bring more prestige and potentially more visitors to the city than a pool.
“Something we do of this magnitude and this kind of a cost should try to focus on what we are, which is an ocean community,” Newport Beach resident Phil Rowe said. “And you’ve got a great opportunity to educate children and adults on our ocean ... you will make more of a statement for Newport Beach and our coastal environment by having an aquarium.”
Most of the people who offered public comments during the study session were in favor of building a pool. They said it has been something Newport Beach’s large aquatics community has been asking for for decades. Residents say they pay to swim at pools in other cities because local facilities are too crowded. Business owner and former Newport Harbor swimmer Peter Belden says he pays thousands of dollars to rent a pool at Orange Coast College in order to run his underwater fitness training sessions.
“It’s equitable for everybody,” said Robin Sinclair, a former member of the Parks Beaches and Recreation Committee. “Not everybody can afford a private club. I am one of those seniors that swam at the YMCA in that deep warm water, and I love that pool. And that’s impacted. It would be wonderful if that’s something available for everybody in all ages.”
All seven members of the City Council raised their hands in support of the proposed swimming facility in an informal straw poll taken at the end of Tuesday’s session. The city must conduct outreach and solicit additional feedback from the public, then come up with a final design and budget for the project before seeking final approval from the City Council.
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