By Melissa Morris, The Orange County Register, Calif.
Mar. 29--NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--Developers of the Newport Dunes Resort Hotel will decide by next week whether to
scrap their multimillion dollar project.
Tim Quinn, project manager, said Dunes officials will meet this week to discuss what to do after last week's suggestions
by the Planning Commission.
Commissioners took several straw votes to reduce the size of the development from its proposed 370-room hotel,
100 hotel-style time-shares and 46,000 square feet of conference space -- a move Quinn fears could kill the project.
"You end up with basically a glorified motel without a meeting space, and you need that meeting space to draw
business groups," Quinn said.
Commissioners want developers to remove from their plans the fifth story of the hotel, which will wipe out 18 rooms.
They also want the third floor of a time-share building removed and the rooms relocated to lower levels, and meeting
space scaled back to 30,0000 square feet.
Quinn said it is the removal of meeting space that's most detrimental to the project. Richard Luehrs, president
of the Newport Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce, agrees.
"Hotels are dependent upon meeting space to sell to group businesses," Luehrs said. This is the second
time since January commissioners have asked Dunes developers to downsize the project between Back Bay and Bayside
drives.
The original project had a 400-room hotel, up to 200 time-shares and 54,000 square feet of meeting space.
The project will go before the commission again at 6 p.m. April 6.
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