City paving way for Corona del Mar street improvements

The concrete on Ocean Boulevard near China Cove is 80 years old and cracked, but when city staff began to make plans to replace it, they noticed other oddities and opportunities.

Mark Vukojevic, an engineer and deputy public works director for the city of Newport Beach, gave this assessment at a recent Corona del Mar Residents Assn. board meeting, as he described plans to repave and upgrade Ocean Boulevard.

The first phase of the project is funded and approved and could begin in January. During this phase, the concrete would be replaced on Ocean Boulevard from Goldenrod to Marguerite avenues, and on Marguerite Avenue from Ocean Boulevard to East Coast Highway. The budget for this phase is $1.2 million.

The second phase is being developed. Vukojevic revealed three “hot-off-the-presses” renderings of work to be done on Ocean between Carnation and Fernleaf avenues.

One improvement, he said, would be to add a sidewalk between Dahlia and Fernleaf, where currently and inexplicably there is none.

Three options for the area would each involve narrowing the street, adding landscaping and creating a ocean-lookout area at the end of Dahlia.

One of the options would involve creating a landscaped median in the middle of Ocean, with traffic going a single direction on either side. The other two options were similar and involve adding landscaping and sidewalks on the ocean side of the street, leaving room for parking and a two-lane roadway.

Linda Rasner, who lives in the area, said she was concerned that the narrower roadway would make it difficult for motorists to turn around when they reached the end of Carnation Avenue. Others said they were concerned about trucks being able to make a turn to go down the ramp to the China Cove neighborhood.

Other residents members said they preferred parallel street parking to diagonal or rows of parking, as depicted in the drawings. Vukojevic said those suggestions would be incorporated into the plans as the project evolved.

The group also suggested that the landscaping include native plants. Residents association President Karen Tringali suggested that city staff coordinate with the AERIE project, which broke ground this fall and will replace an old apartment building at Carnation and Ocean with seven luxury condos.

“So at the end of the day it looks like it’s been given some thought, even though it’s two separate projects,” she said.

The second phase of the project would be funded in next year’s budget at a cost of $2.2 million, and work would likely not begin until fall 2015.

“We have the next six months to design it,” Vukojevic said.

The residents association will discuss amended plans at a future meeting and probably also at the group’s annual town meeting in April.