Irvine Company to the Rescue?

I couldn't find an article on the Daily Pilot for this, I guess Jeff Overley at the OC Register must have stayed later at the Newport Beach City Council meeting, but OC Register had this article about the Irvine Company offering to lease, for 99 years mind you, a parking lot across from the heavily disputed potential City locations (the Library/Park vs. OCTA site) for the City of Newport Beach to build their White Elephant on.

It's an interesting proposition, and obviously the City Council also thought so because of their unanimous vote to start negotiations with the Irvine Company. Instead of "taking" already dedicated parkland next the Library and instead of buying/land swapping with the Orange County Transit Authority, we'd rent the land...hmmmm...let's think about this for a bit.

Doing this wouldn't upset the Parkland fans.

We wouldn't have to buy land or trade for the property. What we sell the current City Hall land could offset most (some?) of the costs of building the new White Elephant, thus borrowing less.

Chances are, we'd have to build a new White Elephant before the 99 years are up (only God knows where it would go in the year 2106, if a Tsunami or Earthquake hasn't taken us out beforehand).

One downside would be that the City would then "Owe" the Irvine Company for saving the City from further acrimony and mayhem. Who knows what they would want in return for the "Favor."

This sounds like a better alternative. It's still early and there's still that Initiative out there. Can't wait to hear more about this one...