The public relations firm handling the projects says that Wolfgang Puck and Nobu Malibu will open restaurants at the properties that formerly housed the PierView and Windsail restaurants.
By Jonathan Friedman / Special to The Malibu Times
Billionaire Larry Ellison cleared a big hurdle last week toward the opening of two restaurants on property he owns near the Malibu Pier. The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board unanimously approved wastewater discharge permits for both projects. With Malibu City Council and California Coastal Commission approval already behind him, Ellison only needs to obtain a couple more permits from the city before construction can begin.
Although Ellison’s representatives have refused to confirm it, it is well known throughout Malibu that he owns the two properties that housed the former PierView and Windsail restaurants. The ownerships are listed under two different LLCs. Both projects were presented to the RWQCB last week by the public relations firm Fiona Hutton & Associates. Firm president Fiona Hutton in an interview this week specified she could not discuss the ownership of the properties due to a confidentiality agreement.
Hutton said the plan is for Japanese restaurant Nobu Malibu to move from Malibu Country Mart to the Windsail property and for Wolfgang Puck to open an eatery on the PierView site. Puck previously owned Granita at Malibu Colony Plaza until it closed in 2005. That space remains vacant at Colony Plaza. Hutton said no leases have been signed for the properties because they are waiting for all permits to be obtained. Both existing buildings are slated for demolition to make way for new structures. The Nobu will be 6,300 square feet and the Puck restaurant will be 6,900 square feet.
“Construction will take roughly a year,” Hutton said. “They’re shooting for an opening in summer 2011. You want to be open for the busy tourist season, obviously.”
The two restaurants will operate with separate onsite wastewater treatment systems. The systems received the backing of Heal the Bay President Mark Gold, who is often critical of wastewater treatment plans in Malibu, and what he sees as negative effects they have on water quality.
“The treatment systems are a step forward compared to other significant coastal developments in Malibu,” Gold wrote in a letter to the RWQCB.
He said in an interview this week that he would not classify his letter as support for the project, but rather that he did not oppose it because it would not affect water quality.
“The decision [by the RWQCB to approve the project] showed that the regional water quality control board is not against all projects in Malibu,” Gold said. “This shows if a project is done in an environmentally sensitive manner to protect human health, then it will get approved. I know there’s been a sort of anti-water board backlash after the [septic] prohibition decision as if everything that’s in Malibu will be opposed by the board. I think this demonstrates that that’s not the case at all.”
Many people have speculated about the fates of the vacant buildings. Ellison bought PierView in 2003 for an undisclosed sum from longtime owner Chuck Spencer. He then purchased the Windsail structure, which was already vacant, from local developer Richard Weintraub the following year. The two properties have remained unoccupied since that time behind a chain-linked fence, considered by many to be eyesores, with an occasional truck or two and mobile homes appearing on the property.