Newport Junior Lifeguards focus on funding a new $3.25-million headquarters to replace beach trailer
The most important classrooms for the Newport Beach Junior Lifeguards are the sand and sea. But that doesn’t mean the single-wide trailer a few yards from the Balboa Pier is sufficient for the popular city-run summer program, boosters say.
The blocky, low-slung structure lacks not just space but also running water for the roughly 1,400 children who show up for the two daily sessions from late June through early August to learn ocean safety. That means that when the 9- to 15-year-old kids need to go to the bathroom, they have to walk to the spartan, dim and sometimes hectic public restrooms in groups of three.
Graham Harvey, chairman of the nonprofit Newport Beach Junior Lifeguard Foundation, said safety and sanitation are the main reasons the foundation wants an upgrade, which it hopes can be achieved through a public-private partnership.
The group has about $130,000 from private donors and a set of color renderings that show a 4,900-square-foot, approximately $3.25-million building in the same location. The boosters are grateful for the funds and they’re patient, Harvey said. But they also want a renewed commitment from the city, which could reinvigorate the fundraising, he added.
The city put a new Junior Guards facility, along with other building projects like a fire station-library complex in Corona del Mar, on hold last year in the face of budget concerns driven by pension costs. Now the city is more financially optimistic — the CdM “fibrary” is set to break ground Tuesday — and so are the Junior Guards supporters.
Harvey said he would like to see the city dedicate money to begin the project’s preliminary phase next year.
At a City Council meeting last month where council and staff discussed upcoming capital projects, City Manager Dave Kiff suggested the city could add the Junior Guards project to next year’s lineup via the “budget checklist.” The checklist is the city’s final look at its budget in June after it has prepared the bulk of the document but before it passes it.
The Junior Guards foundation was formed in 2011 with a new facility as a goal, said Harvey, a former program participant and instructor who now works as an insurance broker.
The program has a strong reputation — recently, one of its older guards, Jax Richards, was named a Junior Guard of the Year by the California Surf Lifesaving Assn. — but its current home doesn’t reflect that, Harvey said.
Sisters Bianka, 12, and Gianna Gaspar, 10, waited in a line that quickly filled the trailer last week while picking up their uniforms for their second year with the program. They said they’ve enjoyed Junior Guards but would like to see more from the building.
“Make it stand out,” Bianka said.
Plans for the new headquarters, which would be more than twice the size of the current space, show a large shaded deck, an auditorium with audio/visual capabilities, a first-aid room, secure indoor storage, locker rooms with showers, and several controlled-access bathrooms.
For now, though, the headquarters consist of two main rooms in the small trailer, with staff desks in one and group instruction in the other. In the summer, staff brings out boxcar-like storage containers for larger items such as buoys and paddleboards, which are kept in private storage during the offseason.
The multipurpose room can fit about 30 to 40 people. “Locker rooms” are closet-like spaces with curtains stapled to the wall.
The deck is used for presentations, functions and daily announcements and as an observation post. It’s also a treatment and quarantine corner when a child is sick or injured.
There is nothing equivalent to a principal’s or nurse’s office — the latter of which would help when an illness runs through, as it does “like a freight train every summer,” said program director and lifeguard training captain Brian O’Rourke.
The proposed headquarters would be utilitarian, with no air conditioning, Harvey said, but it would be attractive.
“The rest of the Balboa area looks pretty nice,” he said.
The trailer “kind of stands out as an eyesore in the area,” he added.
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