Irvine Co. Negotiating to Build New Luxury Hotel : Development: Talks are under way for construction of a second plush hotel on the Irvine coast, but it is no “done deal.”

The Irvine Co. is negotiating with the Hyatt Corp. hotel chain to build and operate a second plush hotel on the Irvine Coast, the three-mile stretch of wind-swept shoreline between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach that the big landowner is developing as a resort.

The company has already signed one deal with Marriott Corp. to operate an 1,100-room hotel overlooking the ocean and part of a golf course. It will be one of the largest hotels on the California coast when it opens around 1993.

The second hotel, a smaller, 450-room structure just up the hill from the Marriott, will also overlook the ocean and several holes of the golf course, according to real estate sources familiar with the deal. They also said that there are some major points remaining to be negotiated between Hyatt and the Irvine Co.

Both companies declined to disclose details of the talks, but Hyatt confirmed that they were continuing.

“We’re taking a look at it, but it’s no done deal,” a Hyatt spokesman said.

The hotel would be a Park Hyatt, which is a more luxurious hotel than the chain’s Hyatt and Hyatt Regency hotels. A health spa with mud baths and similar resort amenities are planned.

Park Hyatts are usually small--often under 300 rooms--and the service is usually better and more extensive than in less-expensive hotels.

The Marriott planned nearby will be owned by the hotel chain but will lease the land from the Irvine Co., paying rent that will slide upward based on the hotel’s revenues. That will also be the arrangement with Hyatt, real estate sources said.

The Irvine Co. is also said to be negotiating with another large hotel company to build and operate a third hotel. It has permission to build another 600 rooms on the property, which is one of the last large undeveloped stretches of coastline in Orange County.

After a 20-year fight, the Irvine Co. compromised with environmentalists and won permission to build 2,150 hotel rooms on the coastal property as well as 2,600 expensive houses and apartments. The company once planned to build offices and more houses there, too, before the compromise with environmentalists.

The hotel deals are part of a resort boom along the Orange County coast propelled by several forces: The fact that there’s a huge market nearby in the Los Angeles metro area; the saturation of Hawaii with resorts; the availability of choice sites along the Orange County coast, and the fact that coastal resorts generally have higher occupancy rates than inland hotels, which are overbuilt in Orange County.

Besides the three resort hotels planned for the Irvine Co. property, there are already two operating in Dana Point: The Ritz-Carlton and the Dana Point Resort. There are also seaside hotels planned for Huntington Beach. And the Australian Qintex Group plans at least another resort hotel in Dana Point, although that one has been thrown into doubt because some Qintex subsidiaries just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Hyatt is known for operating a string of resorts and elegant hotels in big-city downtowns and affluent suburbs. It operates 23 hotels and resorts in California, three in Orange County, and 148 hotels worldwide.

But Hyatt only recently gained a foothold in central Orange County, including Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Irvine, when in July it took over the contract to operate the Newporter Resort near Fashion Island in Newport Beach, its first hotel in the area.

It also operates a hotel across the street from the Hyatt Anaheim near Disneyland and the Hyatt Regency Alicante in Garden Grove, which Hyatt took over in 1987.

Over the years Hyatt has talked to some of the county’s biggest developers about a hotel deal, but the Irvine Co. deal would be the first time such talks have borne fruit.

The Hyatt chain is run by the billionaire Pritzker family from Chicago as a privately held company.