New Center

The student center at Orange Coast College began benefiting another group Saturday - veterans. About 80 attendees, including veterans and OCC students and staff, welcomed a new Veterans Resource Center at the 37th annual Santa Ana Army Air Base Reunion on Saturday. The resource center will be beneficial to OCC's veteran students, said Joey Dillard, Master at Arms of the Student Veterans Group at OCC. "We're going to give [these veterans] information, and, as little as they may think, this information will transition them into civilian life without even having to go to the health center to get help for it," Dillard said.

Today will be a time for new beginnings at Vanguard University. A graduation ceremony for about 400 undergraduate and graduate students will be held on the athletic field at 10 a.m. At 2:30 p.m., the campus will celebrate breaking ground on the new Heath Academic Center for Religion and Business. It will be the official launch of the university's ambitious capital campaign -- "Vanguard 21." The campaign envisions a comprehensive university serving more than 3,000 students by 2010.

Workers rushed around Newport Coast Community Center Friday morning, putting the finishing touches on the 17,000-square-foot, $8.5 million building. The center will host a grand opening dedication at 10 a.m. today. “As with any grand opening, everything is up to the last minute,” said Wes Morgan, director of the city’s Recreation and Senior Services Department. “But at least the paint is dry.” The focal point of the new center is a gymnasium with an indoor-outdoor stage.

The city of Newport Beach plans to open its new Civic Center to great fanfare Saturday. But opponents of the recent decision to raise rental rates on residential piers plan to protest outside of the opening-day ceremony. "We are asking you to be physically involved," according to statement from Stop the Dock Tax. "We appreciate your monetary generosity, but now is the time for you to physically support our cause with your personal appearance at our rally to protest to the cost of the city hall.

The economy stinks, as we all know, but deflation has some advantages. Initially, city officials figured the new Oasis Senior Center in Corona del Mar would cost about $20 million. But the bids came in low enough to knock the price down to about $16.5 million. That meant the city won’t need to borrow money to finance it for now. The better news, of course, is that our seniors will finally have a new center worthy of them. They’ve gotten by since the 1970s with an old-school building on Marguerite Avenue.

The Oasis Senior Center hopes to see its membership grow from about 4,000 to anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 when it moves into a new 36,500-square-foot building in Corona del Mar this fall, officials said. “We anticipate a lot of people will want to come check it out because it’s something new,” said Scott Paulsen, president of Friends of Oasis, which raises money for the senior center. Construction on the $16.5-million building on Marguerite Avenue is on schedule, and the center could be moving into its new digs by October or November, center Director Celeste Jardine-Haug said.

After one year of fundraising, Oasis Senior Center is about $500,000 away from its $5-million goal to build the new 36,500-square-foot senior center, officials said this week. Construction on the new $20-million building is slated to begin early next year. “What a difference a year makes,” Friends of Oasis President Evelyn Hart said. “When we first heard that we would have to raise that much money, it seemed a little daunting, but we have had a great many generous donors.

The Newport Harbor Nautical Museum's ExplorOcean center has a substantial portion of the necessary funds to expand at the Balboa Fun Zone, officials said this week. During a presentation at Tuesday's Newport Beach City Council study session, ExplorOcean Capital Campaign Chairman Tom Pollack said the waterfront center has $8 million committed to it, or about 10% to 15% of what he expects will be the total cost before fundraising. The project is six weeks into its capital campaign.

Music, food and bunny rabbits welcomed hundreds of area residents to the opening of Newport Beach's new Civic Center on Saturday. As the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing Band played "Stars and Stripes Forever" before Saturday's ceremony, many families checked out city hall's new home, some venturing out to the circle of bunny statues on the campus periphery and others peering over the viewing platform at the end of the San Miguel bridge on the breezy morning....

The city of Newport Beach plans to open its new Civic Center to great fanfare Saturday. But opponents of the recent decision to raise rental rates on residential piers plan to protest outside of the opening-day ceremony. "We are asking you to be physically involved," according to statement from Stop the Dock Tax. "We appreciate your monetary generosity, but now is the time for you to physically support our cause with your personal appearance at our rally to protest to the cost of the city hall.

The student center at Orange Coast College began benefiting another group Saturday - veterans. About 80 attendees, including veterans and OCC students and staff, welcomed a new Veterans Resource Center at the 37th annual Santa Ana Army Air Base Reunion on Saturday. The resource center will be beneficial to OCC's veteran students, said Joey Dillard, Master at Arms of the Student Veterans Group at OCC. "We're going to give [these veterans] information, and, as little as they may think, this information will transition them into civilian life without even having to go to the health center to get help for it," Dillard said.

Public art had a night in the spotlight at the Newport Beach City Council meeting Tuesday, with discussion centered on the creation of an arts and culture fund and the selection of a sculpture to adorn the new civic center grounds. "We think it's [the fund] a meaningful and significant contribution to public arts in our city," City Arts Commissioner Robert Smith told the council members, who voted unanimously to set aside 2% of previously unallocated  fees from development agreements for art and cultural facilities.

When Mihir Worah, managing director at the asset management giant Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO), arrived in Newport Beach, he had a quibble. "I moved to Orange County about 10 years ago, and I'm always complaining about how folks here don't care about science, and they're not excited," the particle physicist said. His son attends Sage Hill School on Newport Coast, so when administrators asked Worah to join a team advising the private college preparatory academy how to build a science center that would benefit the county, he agreed.

From a distance, Newport Beach's new City Council Chambers off Avocado Avenue glowed like a cruise ship, its metal hull rising over a sea of dark construction barriers. Getting closer Tuesday night, tall walls of windows revealed a crowd gathering to celebrate the City Council's first meeting there, capping off nearly a decade of fierce debate - though officials have emphasized that the completed Civic Center won't officially be unveiled until next year. An open house is scheduled for May 4. Inside the chambers, the soaring terraced ceilings, angular-yet-ergonomic furnishings and high-tech accouterments made the 150-seat hall feel like a space-age cathedral.

Florescent lights dimmed, aged seats groaned beneath shifting bodies. Amplified voices weighing in on outsourcing trash services bounced off 27-year-old walls. Tuesday's meeting marked the last time the Newport Beach City Council would meet for a regularly scheduled council meeting in the old City Hall at 3300 Newport Blvd. on the Balboa Peninsula. The council will later this month begin gathering five miles away in new chambers at 100 Civic Center Drive - a building envisioned as a sleek steel-and-stone structure hugged by a fabric sail.

The Newport Harbor Nautical Museum's ExplorOcean center has a substantial portion of the necessary funds to expand at the Balboa Fun Zone, officials said this week. During a presentation at Tuesday's Newport Beach City Council study session, ExplorOcean Capital Campaign Chairman Tom Pollack said the waterfront center has $8 million committed to it, or about 10% to 15% of what he expects will be the total cost before fundraising. The project is six weeks into its capital campaign.

COSTA MESA — A gym and community center proposed for an apartment complex would hurt the view and lower home values in the surrounding Mesa Verde neighborhood, residents and a longtime real estate agent argued this week. The proposed 44-foot-tall fitness and community center in the Villa Venetia apartments off Adams Avenue and Mesa Verde Drive East was approved by the city Planning Commission earlier this year. The building's proposed height exceeds the city's 27-foot limit for the property, so the owner needed approval from the Planning Commission.

NEWPORT BEACH — The City Council voted Tuesday night to build a $2-million pedestrian bridge linking two portions of its planned Civic Center. Despite criticism from some who said the bridge would be a waste of money, a 4-3 majority approved the addition. The Civic Center construction project swelled over the years into a $130-million plan, and during the tight economy the City Council has made a priority of trimming costs. The council majority decided Tuesday to add what some called a vital component.