Port Backs Design for 2nd Hotel Tower Near Convention Center

Commissioners of the San Diego Unified Port District on Tuesday unanimously endorsed revised design plans for a second Hotel Inter-Continental tower adjacent to the proposed convention center at Navy Field, even though developer Doug Manchester apparently will miss a self-imposed deadline of Thursday for securing the project’s financing.

Originally planned to mirror the first, elliptical Hotel Inter-Continental tower, the second hotel will, instead, be of a curvilinear design, the commissioners determined. However, final approval will not come until the financing package has been approved and more design details are available.

Christopher Nils, a representative for Manchester’s Torrey Enterprises Inc., and Kipland Howard, an architect at the firm and a prospective minor partner in the second tower, said the new design would make operation of the hotel more efficient. Plans call for both hotels to share costs, profits and some amenities.

“It (the second tower) will look pretty much the same (as the existing one) on the side that faces downtown,” said Howard. “But the other side will be concaved toward the swimming pool and will allow us to serve all of the rooms on a floor with a single corridor.” The current hotel has two corridors per floor.

Nils characterized the design modification as “similar in silhouette but different in floor plan.”

Commissioners and special Port District counsel Alan Perry expressed some reservations about a proposed increase of as much as 25,000 square feet in the restaurant and meeting space at the second tower because it has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in parking spaces.

The change in design did not worry the port officials nearly as much as the delay in negotiations between Manchester and the lending institutions financing the second hotel. “Overall, it’s still a pleasing design. I would have voted for it this way in the first

place, anyway,” said Commissioner Louis Wolfsheimer.

“But none of what we’ve acted on today is effective unless they get their act together and get those papers (on the financial arrangements) down to the recorder’s office.”

Last week, Manchester had expressed optimism that the financing would be completed for the commissioners’ vote Tuesday. Now, Nils said, the principals are hoping to agree on the financing by the port commission’s meeting next Tuesday.

Revenue from a second Hotel Inter-Continental tower is considered critical to the economic well-being of the convention center, which could cost the Port District as much as $125 million to build.

If Manchester completes the 700-plus-room hotel by the Dec. 31, 1991, deadline, he will be allowed to build, with the Hyatt Corp., a third, 800-room hotel on port property near Seaport Village. In all, the three hotels would have about 2,200 rooms.

Lease revenues from the hotels have been tabbed to help defray the port’s construction cost on the convention center, while transient occupancy taxes paid by guests at the hotels would go toward its operation.