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Mesa Birch Park Thanks to YOUR emails to the City of Newport Beach and the Board of Supervisors, agreed to keep this parcel within the community and create a Passive Park for the residents. The City talked with the County and they agreed that the City of Newport Beach would design the park, Mesa Birch View Park", and complete the project. PAC formed a sub committee including: Rick Dayton, Richard Moriarty, Tim Stoaks and Gary Hall. Update Feb. 2009 The park is now completed and open. Update 10/4/08 The park seems to have picked up momentum. Planting has begun and the estimate now is 2 months to completion. Update 6/4/08 You might have noticed that the park construction seemed to come to a halt the past two months. There was a walkway issue that the city needed to resolve with the contractor and they also resolved a water meter/backflow preventer issue with IRWD. The contractor has now started the 6 week weed abatement program and upon completion, landscaping and bollard lights will be installed. New lettering has been ordered for the signage as well. They estimate another two months before the park is completed. 12/10/07 Beginning Dec. 10th construction crews started working on the parcel across from the Fire Station. We are so proud to see this start to take shape. The park should be ready for public use this Spring. 11/19/07 At its October 9, 2007 meeting, the City Council awarded a construction contract to Belaire-West Landscape Inc in the amount of $357,000. A pre-construction meeting was held on Monday, October 22. All contract documents are signed and complete. Contractor is presently wrapping up other jobs (including one in Stevenson's Ranch) and expects to start at the Mesa Birch Park site in mid November depending on the impact of the wildfires on their other jobs. Update 9/27/07 Dave Kiff will be taking the Mesa-Birch Park bid award and design to teh October 9th City Council meeting. That should still allow us to break ground in November. The bids came in at $357K, which is good. But with a 10% contingency and the previous design fees, we're a bit over our $378K allocation from the County. Update 7/23/07 The Mesa Birch Park is moving along. The City of Newport Beach is finalizing an Agreement between the County and the City that would memorialize what the County Board of Supervisors agreed to (County owns it, City builds and maintains it, building is done with RDA funds). As that Agreement goes to the Council and Board of Supervisors, the City will put the project out to bid again so that much of the planting can be done this coming fall, when plants like these are supposed to go in. Update June 4, 2007 Dave Kiff reports: the City staff met last week to prepare the Construction Documents for bid. Because many of the plants in the park design are native, the best time to plant these will be November. As such, the project should be put to bid next month, with a 30-day timeline for responses. Then the project goes to Council for bid award (Aug) and the contractor has about 2-4 weeks to get necessary insurance documents in hand. We're hoping to be planting this fall. Construction time is about 3-4 months. The City and County have settled on the park ownership issue, with the County retaining ownership and the City building and maintaining the park. The park will be built with RDA funds and maintained with City general funds. Update 2/6/07 Dave Kiff reported to Mario Mainero: "Pursuant to a letter to Supervisor Silva (July 14, 2004), we were (and remain) willing to maintain this park once it is built. We (City) don't have to own it--ownership was not our first choice. We believe that funding for the park's design and construction should come from RDA dollars, but that maintenance (and indemnification) would be on the City's General Fund. With Supervisor Silva's blessing, we embarked upon planning the park, including several meetings with PAC members. In mid-2006, after design approval by the City Council, we put it out to bid. In August 2006, low bid was $378K. We didn't award the bid when the County backed off on the verbal deal. We have incurred about $30,214 in design costs for this Project. Mr. Kiff would expect that this park could be built in 4-5 months if given the go-ahead today. The residents wanted this parcel to have new monument signage and grass because, currently, it is a dump site for trash and weeds and is an entrance to the community." Mario Mainero Reports Course of action: City of Newport Beach to work with Supervisor Moorlach�s staff to prepare an ASR for the Board to consider approving the project based on a lease to the City and RDA funds to design and construct the park, with the City paying for the maintenance of the park as its lease payment to the County. This would be predicated on the provision in the lease that after the County constructs the project, all indemnification and maintenance will be borne solely by the City of Newport Beach, at no future cost to the County. If approval is secured, the project would be completed 4-5 months thereafter. |
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