Save Balboa Village: 5 Small Business Ideas for Newport Beach City Hall

Published November 8, 2026

A storefront with a 'For Rent' sign, surrounded by benches and potted plants.

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NEWPORT BEACH | CITY HALL WATCH | NOVEMBER 8, 2026

Every Balboa Bar, every ferry ride, every bar of wax from 15th Street keeps Newport, Newport. Fashion Island can have the chains.

The last citywide breakdown we found, from the Business Journal in 2013, counted nearly 4,600 businesses here. More than half had one to four workers. Only seven had 500 or more.

The legends prove it. The Balboa Island Ferry has been Beek family since 1919. Sugar ‘n Spice has been dipping frozen bananas since 1945. The Crab Cooker opened in 1951, had its building torn down in 2019 and came back anyway. C’est Si Bon still has surfers grabbing coffee off Coast Highway on the way to the waves. And 15th Street Surf Shop has sat steps from the sand since 1961, run by owners who worked there as kids, with a second shop on 32nd now. Total success story.

So what’s City Hall done? Some real stuff. Balboa Village facade grants launched in 2015 and helped 10 shops fix up their storefronts. Then in 2021 the city killed Balboa Village’s own parking money pot and sent the leftovers to the General Fund. And the new 2050 General Plan says the city will “consider developing” a legacy business program. An earlier draft said “pursue.” That’s City Hall for “we’ll circle back.”

Meanwhile, Balboa is hurting. A Balboa Village broker told council in July 2025 that more than half the area’s commercial spaces sat empty. We haven’t counted ourselves. Walk Main Street on a November weekday and judge.

Ideas we’d hand council tomorrow:

Stop considering. Build the legacy program and start in Balboa. San Francisco’s pays landlords who sign long leases with longtime shops.
Bring back facade grants. They worked.
Fill empty storefronts with local pop-ups. Visit Newport Beach just turned four empty storefronts in Manhattan into a Newport beach day: real sand shipped in, all four built in under 24 hours, more than 3,500 people through the door by VNB’s count. Main Street Balboa has openings too, no plane ticket needed.
Waive permit fees for independents opening in a vacant Balboa storefront.
Give Balboa one council study session all its own.

Newport doesn’t need another chain. It needs the next 15th Street. Balboa has the storefronts. City Hall has the pen.

Photos: The Balboa Local; Balboa Village by Sven Piper / Unsplash

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