Pacific Life pulls plans for expansion

Noaki Schwartz

NEWPORT BEACH -- Pacific Life has yanked long-standing plans to expand

its Newport Center offices, forcing at least one-fourth of the company’s

work force to move to South County by summer.

The move, announced Friday, is the third in a domino effect of

application withdrawals that are being attributed to uncertainties

created by the so-called Greenlight initiative on the November ballot.

In the last two weeks, the Irvine Co. and the California Teachers

Retirement System have also scrapped their projects, which were part of

an overall plan to add 1 million square feet of office space and 200,000

square feet of retail space to Newport Center and Fashion Island.

Pacific Life, the largest life and health insurance firm in the state,

has been headquartered in Newport Center since 1972.

“It was a difficult decision,” said Tom Mays, vice president of

government relations at Pacific Life.

The proposal included a 420,000-square-foot expansion of the existing

insurance company building. Unable to grow inside Newport Center, the

company has decided to move 25% of its work force to Foothill Ranch in

June.

Mays added that the company had been wrestling with the space crunch for

two years, and will have to come up with a permanent solution over the

next decade.

“I think Pacific Life has heeded the message of the [9,000] Newport Beach

residents who signed the [Greenlight] petition, saying that they wanted

less congestion and crowding in the city,” said Phil Arst, spokesman for

Greenlight, the group of community activists that designed the measure.

But at Tuesday’s Newport Beach City Council meeting, vice mayor Gary

Adams belittled the measure’s power, saying the developers probably knew

they didn’t have the council’s support.

“If the council did support [the expansion], we’d probably be subject to

a referendum vote,” he said. He added that it proves the local government

system works and does not need the Greenlight measure.

The initiative proposes to give city residents the power to vote on

developments that would require a major amendment to the city’s General

Plan. The measure defines “major” as any project that would create more

than 100 peak-hour car trips, add more than 100 homes or contain more

than 40,000 square feet of floor area beyond current General Plan limits.

While city officials are by no means siding with the Greenlight group,

they are starting to realize the obvious shift in the city’s voting

population against further growth.

“The atmosphere of the city has changed,” said Councilman Dennis O’Neil,

who headed the committee that first approached the Irvine Co. five years

ago about developing a long-term plan for the build-out of Newport

Center. “When it’s good financial times, people tend to look more at

quality of life.”

Back then, the city was in the midst of a recession -- starving for new

revenue sources and fretting about its economic future. The idea was for

a mixed-use plan that would include retail, office and residential

development, O’Neil said.

Unfortunately, the Irvine Co. and other companies didn’t start moving on

the opportunity until three years later.

By that time, the economic winds had shifted, said Kevin Murphy, former

Newport Beach city manager. Times were good again and the community

became more interested in maintaining its quality of life than saving

city services.

“The tide had turned from pro-development to anti-development in

California,” he said.

This change in the residents’ perspective on their city’s future led to

the birth of the slow-growth initiative.

Before the plans were derailed, there were four companies linked on one

General Plan amendment application. The idea was to share the costs of

studies and supporting documents.

The only remaining property owner on the application, the Newport Beach

Country Club, is proposing to build 150 homes on its property.