........ was for Seacrets use of the entire bayside property, not just parking rights as had been the case with the prior 5-year lease ............. the lease was for the use of the entire property.

Seacrets has been leasing the parking lot for years upon years.  No problem.  Now all of a sudden OPA significantly improves the lease for Seacrets side of this equation (for reasons unknown).

Is this expanded lease OPA's way of compensating or apologizing to Seacrets for not being able to sign a 99-year lease?

Now OPA is trying to justify their improving Seacrets side of this lease because in the opinion of one person, "such a project would never take place."  The walkway project was only an idea, one of potentially many ideas or uses OPA could have for this property, especially if it's filled in.

We don't know for sure, and the board didn't know the entire time it was negotiating a possible 99-year lease with Seacrets, who almost hit the jackpot at OPA's expense.

OPA was negotiating a 99-year lease and didn't know all the facts about their own piece of property.  And one can infer they didn't care to know.  One can guess that Seacrets knew all there was to know about this piece of property, property located in OC on Coastal Highway, before trying to get a lifetime lease.  Who would go to that much effort to get a 99-year lease on a parking lot?