Sea Change

Sure, it was nice to see Orky and Corky, the killer whales, splashing up a storm. And yeah, the dolphins put on a heck of a show. But those days at Marineland are long gone, vanished since the aquatic park closed a decade ago.

Instead, a hip group of Generation Xers are lounging around the pool sipping drinks decorated with little paper umbrellas and showing off their bronzed bodies in front of the cameras.

MTV has taken over an abandoned restaurant at the old park on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and converted it into a guest-filled lodge to film its summer blowout called “Motel California,” which has begun broadcasting this Memorial Day weekend.

The mock motel sign out front reads: “Welcome Sexy Robot Convention.”

Yet, the MTV crew’s stay is as temporary as the suntans many of them sport. While the video network spends the summer renting a small corner of the 102-acre expanse in Rancho Palos Verdes, land investor Jim York, who bought the Marineland property two years ago, works in his office just up the hill. Inside are large glossy pictures of fancy golf courses around the country. The photos fit in with his grand scheme to convert the erstwhile home of whales, dolphins, seals and exotic fish into a resort hotel and conference center, 18-hole golf course and 175-home community.

The project would mean the end of one of the last pieces of developable oceanfront property in Los Angeles County, a significant concern to nearby residents who would like to see a smaller resort and golf course built on the edge of the exclusive residential suburb.

While York owns 102 acres on Long Point--the spot where Marineland stood--his project requires 265 acres, primarily for the golf course.

And for York, finding more land along the jagged coastline snuggled next to the rolling hills is like trying to wedge together the pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle. Some of the adjacent land is owned by Rancho Palos Verdes, some is owned by the county, and another portion is owned by Orange County developer J.M. Peters.

But the 49-year-old real estate investor, who lives in Rolling Hills Estates but has worked to put together land deals to develop residential communities in Arizona, is intent on making his project work. He is consulting with resort experts, golf course designers and government bureaucrats to pull the pieces together and begin development in two to three years. The linchpin to the project, York said, is putting in a championship golf course.

“Talking to top resort developers, they told us this is the best site in all of California for a conference resort provided we have an 18-hole golf course,” the tall investor said.

It is easy to see why someone would want to build on this spectacular site.

The old Marineland, closed just months after it was purchased by publisher Harcourt Brace Jovanovich for $23.4 million in 1986 to acquire Orky and Corky for the firm’s San Diego Sea World, sits on a bluff with a commanding view of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island. Waves crash upon the rocky beach below, where seals lazily sun their dark bodies. Los Angeles seems thousands of miles away.

The property is a tawdry shadow of the aquatic park that opened in the early 1950s. The enormous tanks for the seals, dolphins and killer whales Orky and Corky have disappeared. Baja Reef, a mock formation of coral where swimmers used to mingle with exotic fish, is cracked and falling apart. Tall weeds hide the children’s theater. And a 300-foot observation tower was dismantled under pressure from federal aviation officials.

The area is so overgrown with brush that the Los Angeles Police Department occasionally uses the grounds for its SWAT team to practice searching for suspects at night.

The Marineland site was sold in May 1987 to Arizona developer James G. Monaghan, who received approval from the California Coastal Commission in 1991 to build a 450-room resort hotel and a nine-hole golf course. But Monaghan declared bankruptcy and the federal Resolution Trust Corp. acquired his mortgage, selling the Marineland property to York in 1995 for $24 million.

York immediately set out with a loftier plan than his predecessor to develop Long Point Golf Resort. He envisions a four- to five-star resort hotel with 250 to 400 rooms, 100 to 150 time-share units, a 25,000-square-foot spa, tennis courts, two restaurants, 175 homes and townhouses, and an 18-hole golf course. All of this would have to be approved by the Coastal Commission, the city of Rancho Palos Verdes and other government agencies.

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The 18-hole golf course is the key to the project and the most difficult to configure along the jagged coast. York has been talking with top golf course designers across the nation and recently received a proposed golf course design from Fazio Golf Course Designers in North Carolina, one of the top designers in the country.

For York to come up with enough land for a full golf course, Rancho Palos Verdes would have to move City Hall from its nondescript, barracks-like buildings atop a former Nike missile site to another location, which could be the Golden Cove Shopping Center or atop the proposed golf course clubhouse York might build.

The city could either lease 70 to 80 acres of its land to York or become a joint partner in the golf course. To understand its options, Rancho Palos Verdes is having the project analyzed by consultants at PMW Associates.

Another 20 acres of undeveloped county-owned land north of the Point Vicente Interpretive Center would also be needed for the golf course. Rancho Palos Verdes already has a 55-year lease on the property, but a deal would have to be discussed with Los Angeles County officials.

And then there is the chunk owned by Orange County developer Peters. As part of a development agreement with Rancho Palos Verdes to build 79 houses, Peters must turn over 70 acres to the city as open space land. The city in turn could decide to let York lease 30 acres of that.

Naturally, the plan is not without opponents. Local environmentalists preferred Monaghan’s smaller development plan that incorporated a resort, no homes and a nine-hole course. And they worry about competition from another 18-hole golf course planned along the coast in Rancho Palos Verdes in the Ocean Trails development just west of San Pedro.

“There is no way I can support what York is trying to do,” said Lois Larue, who has lived in Rancho Palos Verdes for more than 30 years and closely monitors development in the city. “It is fine with me if they put a hotel in. But I am totally opposed to them putting in houses. And golf courses in my opinion are toxic wastes sites because they use pesticides, fungicides and herbicides.”

Said Jeanette Mucha, president of the Rancho Palos Verdes Council of Homeowners Assns.: “York wants to put in a lot of homes. That man faces enormous hurdles.”

Another hurdle he faces is from the California gnatcatcher, an endangered species. City Hall is surrounded by coastal sage scrub, which is the habitat of the tiny bird that has thwarted other development projects.

But none of that seems to faze him. York stands at the edge of the bluffs, commanding a sweeping view of fishing boats bobbing in the water and of Catalina Island off in the distance, and says:

“This is going to be one of the greatest holes of golf one day.”