Adding luster to the Golden Arches

Alicia Robinson

A fast-food lane may eventually become the fast lane as the

McDonald’s restaurant on Coast Highway is renovated and set back from

the street to allow future widening.

The restaurant closed two weeks ago and was bulldozed last week.

Plans for the new restaurant include a white, Cape Cod-style building

with blue awnings and a luxurious interior with a plasma TV, metal

sculptures and counters and bathroom fixtures in granite and marble,

said restaurant owner Terry Solon, who also owns and operates a

Balboa Peninsula McDonald’s and one at Fashion Island, which got a

face-lift last year.

“It’s intended to blend in with the architecture of Mariner’s

Mile,” Solon said. “The restaurant has never had a really nice dining

room before, and this dining room will really lend itself to the

community.”

Solon wanted to upgrade the building, which is more than 30 years

old, but another impetus for the redesign was to clear 12 feet that

was the restaurant’s drive-thru in case the city needs it to widen

Coast Highway, Solon said.

“The city’s master plan of streets and highways calls for Coast

Highway to eventually be three lanes in each direction,” Newport

Beach planning director Patricia Temple said.

The road in front of the restaurant is now four lanes wide. The

widening would take place on the north side, but there are no

immediate plans to widen Coast Highway, she said. That portion of the

road is owned by Caltrans.

While the road will remain the same for now, Solon hopes to have

the refurbished restaurant open by the end of the year. He’s paying

the cost of the building, decor and landscaping, and the McDonald’s

corporation is paying for a new retaining wall and sharing some other

costs, he said. He wouldn’t give exact figures but said the project

is worth more than $1 million.

Customers may be disappointed that the restaurant is temporarily

closed, but about 5,000 of them got coupons to use at Solon’s two

other restaurants during the renovation. Solon said the response to

the upgrades at his Fashion Island restaurant has been good, and he’s

considering fixing up the Balboa Peninsula McDonald’s.

The McDonald’s renovation is one of a number of construction

projects on Mariner’s Mile at the moment, said Newport Beach City

Councilman Don Webb, who represents the area.

The $5-million Gugasian Center will include an upscale jewelry

store and Maserati dealership; a new commercial development at Coast

Highway and Dover Drive is in the planning stages; and a medical

office facility is coming to the former site of a Chili’s restaurant.

“This is the first time in many years that we’ve had this much new

construction going on on Mariner’s Mile,” Webb said. “I think that’s

going to perhaps encourage others to upgrade their properties.”

On widening Coast Highway, the city’s position has long been that

officials will look into it when residents and businesses ask for it,

Webb said. The city has acquired four or five pieces of the necessary

right-of-way, but traffic hasn’t significantly increased in five or

six years, he said.

“The city’s master plan provides for [widening], but there hasn’t

been a push from anybody in the city at this time to go forward,” he

said.