The vision materializes

Danette Goulet

It is no longer a vision for a vast and empty parcel of land along the

coveted California coast. One can only gawk at the concrete and metal

frame that has been growing up out of the dirt along Pacific Coast

Highway. It looks as if it will be menacing in size.

And yet, the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort and Spa, which

promises to be a spectacular retreat when it opens in December or

January, will go no higher than what can now be seen. Although it will

continue to sprawl outward and encompass 15-acres it is expected to be

elegant and a financial boon for the city.

“It [will be] the most complete conference resort on the West Coast,”

promised Robert Wentworth, the director of sales and marketing for Hyatt.

The luxury hotel will boast 519 guest rooms, 58 of which will be

suites, three of them presidential suites with 3,100-square-feet of

living space. The conference center, which is the steel structure going

up closest to the Waterfront Hilton, will be 52,000 square feet of

convention space, with three ocean-view ballrooms, Wentworth said.

The 20,000-square-foot ballroom will be capable of holding 1,500

people -- three times as many as the Hilton next door.

There will be a private spa, with 18 treatment rooms and a smaller

courtyard with three Jacuzzis -- a romantic area, Wentworth added.

Walkways will lead guests around the resort through six courtyards,

four of them ocean-facing with themed fountains, one retail courtyard and

a spa courtyard.

The resort has long been a vision of the city, which bought out or

relocated residents of the Driftwood mobile home park, which once

occupied the beach front property, said Rich Barnard, director of public

information for the city. A vast majority of the mobile home owners now

reside at the city-run Ocean View Mobile Homes Estates at Goldenwest and

Ellis avenues, he said.

Developer Robert Mayer Corp., which is also responsible for the city’s

other premier conference venue next door, the Waterfront Hilton, began

construction on the Hyatt last spring.

Although the name has changed since then, plans are much the same and

construction is even a bit ahead of schedule, said Steve Bone, president

of the Robert Mayer Corp. and co-owner of the resort.

By the end of the month all of the cement work will be completed, with

steel work done by mid-March, Bone said.

The three looming cranes will disappear by the middle of March to be

replaced by a smaller crane for a month or so. Once summer rolls around

things will really begin to take shape, Bone said. By the end of June the

roof and exterior walls should be in place followed by the much talked

about pedestrian overpass, which should be complete in September, Bone

added.

The resort may open as soon as Dec. 2, but has so far slated January

as the official opening -- just in case, Wentworth said.

But what will this magnificent retreat mean to the residents of

Huntington Beach?

Several million dollars in the city’s coffers, said David Biggs, the

director of economic development for the city.

“The city will get four sources of income [from the resort],” Biggs

said.

First, there is the hotel tax, which once it’s established in two to

three years should bring about $2 million a year, Biggs said.

“Then we also get our ground rent payment plus a percentage of the

gross revenue,” he added.

That will be at least $1.5 million in property taxes, Biggs

calculated.

Then there are the sales tax revenues from the 17,000 square feet of

resort shops -- probably in the neighborhood of $160,000, he said.

But the project will mean much more than tax dollars to the city,

Biggs said.

“I think in general, the city has been trying to enhance its visitor

serving components, and while the Hilton was a good start, what we will

see with the addition of the conference facility is it will make us more

attractive to overnight stays,” Biggs said.

Another area that is bound to draw interest locally is the 184-unit

residential development slated to go in behind the resort. Covering

22-acres there will be a mixture of 3,000-square-foot Paseo homes and

two-story townhomes set up around courtyards, rather than in a row, Bone

said. Surrounding each of these “Melrose place” courtyards, Bone said

there will be four or five 2,000-square-foot townhomes. The project is

still in the permit stage, but Bone said the first phase is expected to

be sold in the spring of 2003. Prices have not yet been set.

One point of contention did arise from Robert Mayer’s plans to fill in

a small pocket of wetlands measuring only seven-tenths of an acre to make

way for additional homes. The developer would have compensated for the

loss by funding the rehabilitation of 2.8 acres at the Shipley Nature

Center in Central Park. But the city decided to protect the

wetlands,dubbed Little Shell by activists in November of 2000 and a month

later put it under the supervision of the Huntington Beach Wetlands

Conservancy.

* DANETTE GOULET is the assistant city editor. She can be reached at

(714) 965-7170 or by e-mail at o7 danette.goulet@latimes.comf7 .