Awaiting a second wind

Paul Clinton

A handful of professional offices, eateries, antique shops, a

travel agency and even two aging homes dot the eclectic landscape of

Old Newport Boulevard, an almost forgotten strip of commerce that may

breathe fresh life if local property owners have their way.

Once the main drag through town, leading from Santa Ana to the

Balboa Peninsula, the two-lane road has become somewhat of a relic,

from a time when railroad tracks lay in place of Newport Boulevard,

the now-buzzing route leading from Costa Mesa’s Triangle Square to

the Newport Pier.

“That street has been a sleeper, like time passed it by,” said Sid

Soffer, one of the district’s more notorious proprietors. “But now,

it’s blossoming.”

The 70-year-old Soffer fled the area in 1995 after an Orange

County judge issued an arrest warrant against him for multiple code

violations at one of his Costa Mesa properties.

More famously, Soffer owned and ran Sid’s Restaurant, a wildly

popular steakhouse at 445 Old Newport Blvd. that closed down shortly

before its owner left for Las Vegas.

When contacted Friday, Soffer said he plans to reopen the tavern

in the next few months. He also said he would reopen Issay

Restaurant, an Italian eatery run by his wife, Michiko, until Aug. 9,

2000, when it caught fire and closed.

Soffer, who owns both properties, said he refused an offer earlier

this month to sell both parcels for $2 million. He said he bought the

land under Issay for $90,000 in 1970 and the land under Sid’s for

$125,000 in 1980.

The lot under Sid’s Restaurant and an adjacent parcel now under

construction perhaps best typify the most recent developments in the

Old Newport Boulevard district. It’s a place where the old and the

new lay side by side.

Brion Jeannette, whose architectural firm’s offices have been in

the district for the past 25 years, is designing an office next to

Soffer’s property for noted heart surgeon Aiden Rainey.

The building will be one of a handful of medical offices that have

gone in during recent years. And with Hoag Hospital’s expansion in

full-tilt mode, Jeannette expects other healthcare professionals to

move into the district.

Jeannette and others are working to get the attention of City

Hall, which they say has ignored the section of town since

implementing the new planning standards in April 1997.

“We do need some city help,” Jeannette said. “We’ve been forgotten

about.”

Jeannette, as a member of the city’s Economic Development

Committee, said he would like to see improvements in the city’s

planning process in implementing the standards for new development in

the area.

Councilman Don Webb, whose district includes the mostly commercial

strip, countered Jeannette’s remarks, saying it is indeed on his

radar screen. However, Webb said he would like the district to keep

its eclectic flavor.

“The Old Newport Boulevard area is definitely on everybody’s list

for some revitalization,” Webb said. “I would personally like to see

a mixture [of uses] in there, rather than being a doctors’ row or

restaurant row. I’d like to see it keep that variety.”

In the 1997 plan, the city encouraged business owners to

consolidate some of the district’s odd-lot parcels, encourage more

mixed-use projects and cut down on boat storage. The city allows boat

storage for five years, with two-year extensions available, senior

planner Patrick Alford said.

The plan also called for a parking median in the middle of the

road, as a way to add parking, and the lowering of the speed limit to

cut down on traffic racing through the district.

Part of the reason why the area has languished, city and business

leaders said, is that many of the property owners haven’t presented a

unified front to City Hall. The dozens of owners have been known to

bicker among themselves.

As one example of that, Soffer and Owen Minney, who also owns

property in the district, feuded for many years leading up to

Soffer’s exit from town. Minney, with older brother Ernie, runs

Minney’s Yacht Surplus in the Costa Mesa portion of Old Newport

Boulevard north of Industrial Way.

Minney declined comment for this story.

* PAUL CLINTON covers the environment, business and politics. He

may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

[email protected].