The final construction plans are almost done, and funds are budgeted for its construction with a donor willing to assist.
We can debate whether this site should have been a park or city hall, but it is, in fact, a park. It can't be both. Mr. Ficker should have brought his idea forward many years ago.
Grass on the roof of a building does not make a park. This City Council must honor the contract it made with its citizens when it created this park and not change it into something else.
There is a vision in the plan for this park and it cannot be done with a building underneath it.
For the City Council to change its mind now will be detrimental to the faith citizens have in the integrity of the City Council.
I am sharing the concept of using the Orange County Transportation Authority transit facility and adjacent vacant land because there appears to be this feeling that the only viable option in Newport Center is to use Newport Center Park for the city hall. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are evaluating the police facility site and other opportunities in Newport Center.
The diagram shows:
A 72,000-square-foot, two-story city hall on the transit facility site that is not in the view plane of any homes.
A relocated transit facility to Avocado Avenue and San Miguel Drive, which would be below the elevation of MacArthur Boulevard and not in anyone's view plane. Combined with a city hall there is a unique opportunity to create an innovative City Hall/Transit Facility complex.
As our transit needs grow over the coming years, this could evolve into a state-of-the art facility that would integrate local transit needs with the transportation authority's service and improve traffic conditions in our city.
