Progress updates on street rehab, new fire station, library, pier, parks and more presented at Newport Beach planning session
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Newport Beach city staff gave the City Council and members of the public a snapshot of new facilities, major renovations and maintenance projects at a special planning meeting last week.
Major remodels
Balboa Island library and fire station
Plans for the replacement of the aging Balboa Branch Library and adjacent Fire Station No. 1 are moving through the design phase and set to begin demolition and construction in the fall, Public Works Director Dave Webb said. Officials expect the project’s completion by the spring or summer of 2027 at a cost of about $18 million.
In the meantime, a temporary fire station will be set up so service and response times to nearby residents will remain unaffected. City staff were considering setting that up in a public parking lot on Balboa Island.
The library was built in 1929, and the fire station opened in 1962.
McFadden Plaza and Newport Pier rehab
Public Works officials are also beginning to work out plans for a dramatic overhaul at the pier. They intend replace the wooden causeway with a more durable one made of concrete or steel, Webb said. Crews are considering adding more space for businesses and rerouting the bike path that runs along the beach to pass underneath the bridge in order to improve foot and vehicle traffic in the area.
“This area is really long in the tooth and needs a refresh,” Webb said. “Even our pier is rather old. It’s a wood pier, and you’ve seen all the recent problems with wood piers.”
The cost of the work was undetermined as of Friday. Webb described the renovation of the pier area as a “major initiative” that would require significant input from the public and would likely be completed in “nodes” over several years. Newport Beach officials hope to begin hosting discussions and soliciting comments from the community beginning either this winter or in the spring of 2026.
“I have to apologize in advance,” Webb said. “We have been trying to get this project. There’s just so much on the plate. You can’t start a major initiative like this and just put a toe in.”
New facilities
Witte Hall
Construction of Witte Hall, a state-of-the art, 299-seat auditorium at the Newport Beach Central Library, is on track for completion in January 2026. The 9,814-square-foot addition is expected to cost $23.5 million, half of which is covered by fundraising by the nonprofit Newport Beach Public Library Foundation.
“It’s progressing very well,” Webb said. “It’s a large building. It’s basically on budget ... it’s a little ahead of what we expected.”
The public works director invited curious residents to stop by the library to view the progress at the construction site on Avocado Avenue.
New pickleball courts
An underutilized portion of land at the intersection of MacArthur and Bonita Canyon may become the site of the city’s newest pickleball courts. That project could cost about $1.3 million.
“Pickleball is very popular, and we’re getting a lot of requests for more and more,” Webb said.
Meanwhile, the city plans on fulfilling a homeowner’s association request to add lights to existing Newport Coast pickleball courts on San Joaquin Road. That improvement is expected to cost between $130,000 and $250,000.
Aquatics complex
A project to create public swimming pools at lower Castaways Park is in its earliest stages, Webb said. City officials are in the process of studying how such a development would impact nearby wildlife, traffic, noise and other issues. They also plan to start formally reaching out to the public for input later this month, Webb said.
“That effort alone will spend about $4.7 million before we start construction,” Webb said.
He expects crews to break ground on the complex in the winter of 2026, and it may open by the spring of 2028.
The overall price of the facility is estimated at $47 million. It may cost as much as $2.5 million to operate annually.
City trolley expansion
In September the Orange County Transportation Authority awarded a $3.2-million grant to cover the majority of the cost to continue and expand Newport Beach’s summer trolley program.
That allowed for the purchase of new natural gas-powered shuttles, which resemble classic rail cars and should be in service in the summer of 2026.
The trolley currently travels to 22 stops, mostly along Balboa Avenue and Newport Boulevard. Newport Beach officials hope to expand that route to extend through Pacific Coast Highway and part of MacArthur Boulevard, looping through Corona Del Mar and Newport Center.
Public Works officials hope to test a pilot of the expanded route during the winter holiday season of 2026. If successful, it may formally debut it in the summer of 2028. Doing so would increase the cost and number of vehicles needed to operate the program.
New police building
A 3.59-acre property at 1201 Dove St. purchased by the city in 2022 for $30.5 million will become the site of new headquarters for the Newport Beach Police Department.
Work on the project won’t be scheduled to begin until at least 2032, Webb said. It’s total cost is estimated to be around $96 million.
The current police headquarters shares a 4-acre parcel with Fire Station No. 3, which was built in 1973. According to studies, the department has outgrown that 49,284-square-foot building and is developing a new drone program.
Maintenance
Balboa Island undergrounding
Crews replacing above-ground power lines with underground electrical infrastructure on Balboa Island are about a month away from completing the first phases of that project, which encompass the area between Diamond Avenue and Collins Island, as well as the area south of Park Avenue. Work on the last phases should begin later this month and be finished by 2028.
Lower Harbor dredging
The city has been partnering with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the past nine years to dredge Newport Harbor so it maintains an appropriate depth for vessels to travel safely, Webb said. Public works officials are sorting out permitting and soliciting bids to continue work on the lower portion of the bay and the Balboa Yacht Basin, which should begin this spring.
The project had been delayed due to concerns raised by environmental groups regarding plans to bury contaminated sediment collected as a result beneath the bay, between Lido Isle and Bay Island. Negotiations with the Port of Long Beach led to an alternative plan approved by the City Council last month that repurposes the sediment as building material for a pier extension, allowing plans for dredging to move forward.
“Now we have to barge it 20 miles,” Webb noted. “The other thing we were going to get a benefit of, because this is all river sand running beneath the harbor, so we would have taken that couple hundred thousand yards and replenished our beach with that. So there’s some trade-off.”
The upcoming phase of dredging will cost over $23 million. About $13 million will be covered by federal funding.
Balboa Island drainage pipes, pump stations
The public works department is in the process of designing a modern, automated drainage system to replace the existing manual infrastructure mitigating flooding on Balboa Island.
“It requires rebuilding a lot of the island,” Webb said. “Because, unlike a new track that has drainage facility built when they’re building the track, this doesn’t have that. We have to put the pipes in, the plumbing in, the pump stations in.”
Construction on that project is scheduled to begin in spring of 2026. The cost of replacing the entire island’s drainage system is estimated at a total of $42 million.
MacArthur Boulevard pavement rehab
The revitalization of MacArthur Boulevard from Campus Drive to Jamboree Road was slated to take place between January through July 2026, Webb said.
“This is a very important street, in my eyes,” the public works director said. “This is the entry street as a visitor when you get off the plane in Orange County and you come into Newport.”
The $6.5-million project entails repaving the roadway and refreshing traffic signals, as well as the addition of landscaped medians and a monument sign to welcome people into the city. Webb noted MacArthur was a federal highway before the city took responsibility for it, so it should be wide enough to retain six vehicle lanes plus bike lanes after improvements.
Ocean Boulevard, Balboa Island concrete street replacement
As crews revamp drainage, power lines and other underground infrastructure across Balboa Island, city staff are also turning their attention to the concrete streets above them.
“We’re going to have to replace those streets; they’re over 100 years old,” Webb said. “We’ve gotten a lot of complaints from the residents, and they’ve been patient.”
Teams will spend the next five years on that project, working west to east across the island. That may cost around $50 million, Webb said.
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