Newport Beach officials are gauging support for relocating one of the city’s fire stations to where there is a transit hub in the Fashion Island area, a change they said could improve the department’s response times and help complete a vision of a broader civic center.
The transportation center, though, is one of the Orange County Transportation Authority’s top-performing hubs and is a connection point for four major bus routes – 1, 55, 57 and 79. In 2023, there were 140,000 boardings at the hub, with an additional 64,000 boardings at surrounding stops on Newport Center Drive, which, OCTA officials said, reflects sustained demand for transit service in the area.
The idea to relocate Fire Station 3, currently situated next to the police station on Santa Barbara Drive, was discussed during a recent City Council meeting, after which councilmembers voted to send a letter to the OCTA to explore the possibility.
Moving the fire station, officials said, would put it in a more central location, right next to City Hall and the Civic Center, with access to nearby major roadways. It would also be helpful for firefighters and emergency medical personnel to help them respond more quickly to calls for medical aid, traffic accidents and fires, especially in the Port Streets, a neighborhood served by the Fire Station 3 crew, officials said.
It would also station fire crews closer to the Buck Gully Reserve, 254 acres in Corona Del Mar classified as a very high fire risk natural area on Cal Fire maps released earlier this year.
Although the concept is still in its early stages of exploration, the council members said they wanted to see if the OCTA has any appetite for undertaking a feasibility study. If there is a mutual interest and the council agrees to move forward, much would require analysis, including whether the site could be shared with the transit hub, or if the OCTA agreed to a move elsewhere in the city, if the facility would be entirely demolished or re-used in some way, said Dave Gibson, a spokesperson for the Fire Department.
A cost or design has not been determined. The last time the city upgraded a fire station was in 2022, when Peninsula Fire Station No. 2 on the Balboa Peninsula was rebuilt on a new lot for nearly $10 million. That process took about a year and a half.
Gibson said Station 3, built in 1973, is nearing the end of its useful life and would require an upgrade at the very least.
“Fire stations typically only last between 40 and 50 years,” he said. “The transportation center provides a lot of good avenues for us. It’s right there on the corner of San Joaquin Hills Road and MacArthur (Boulevard). By moving the station, a preliminary report shows we’re going to reduce our response times by about 40 % — almost a full minute — into the Ports Street neighborhood.”
The department’s response time to anywhere in the city now, Gibson said, is about 4 minutes and 22 seconds on average 90% of the time.
“Which is around the benchmark of the national standard we have to try and meet,” he said. “We pride ourselves on our response time and the advanced life support we provide to the community. Time is heart tissue, time is brain tissue, so any marginal impact we can make in the community is something we at least want to take a look at.”
City officials also said the relocation could complete a civic center hub that in the south will have the library’s new lecture hall under construction and, on the north end, could have the Fire Department.
Councilmember Noah Blom said he sees the station move as a critical component for multiple reasons.
“We keep spending millions retrofitting and fixing things,” he said, adding that doing a temporary staging for personnel while the existing site gets redone has been difficult and cumbersome in other projects. “We looked at alternate sites and we’re also short on coverage in the Port Streets and we thought about the future in Newport Beach.”
Blom said the city approached the OCTA and Fifth District Supervisor Katrina Foley about the plan and looked at what could be beneficial to the region, as well.
“We do know there are a lot of new units going in the airport district,” he said. “Already 1,100 under construction and another 1,500 being planned. What makes more sense than to move it up there?”
He added that the city’s new trolley program, set to start next summer, will ferry passengers around Fashion Island, to Balboa Island, down Pacific Coast Highway and to the Balboa Peninsula and could help fill in any transportation gaps if the transportation center and its bus routes were moved. Where near the airport is still up in the air, because city officials have not publicly discussed the locations, but Blom said there are several that could make sense.
The ask to consider alternative uses for the transportation center isn’t novel, said Joel Zlotnik, a spokesperson for the OCTA. The city has also previously asked the transportation agency to consider adding pickleball courts there. That plan, though, was nixed by the council after the initial queries.
Zlotnik said the agency is always open to discussions, but noted that “a prudent planning process and a specific operations analysis of alternative sites” would need to be undertaken to ensure that the county’s transportation needs are met. He also noted any change would have to comply with federal regulations, funding requirements and deed restrictions set by the Irvine Company.
Zlotnik said the city hasn’t shared specific plans related to a possible relocation near the airport, and therefore can’t speculate on how such a move could impact ridership or operations.
“What we can say is that (hub) is an important part of OCTA’s system, a vital public service for the thousands of residents, workers and visitors who rely upon transit each month,” he said. “We know cities have their own land-use goals, and we’re committed to working together to find ways to align those with OCTA’s role in providing safe, reliable and accessible transit across the county.”