After 3-Year Effort : Carson Hotel-Office Complex Approved
A new plan to build a 220-room, high-quality hotel with an adjoining six-story office complex in Carson’s Civic Center has been approved by city officials, who tentatively agreed to subsidize about $1 million of the $29-million cost.
After three years of stymied efforts to obtain an image-enhancing development for the Civic Center, members of the City Council voted 3 to 0 Monday to approve a proposal by Los Angeles-based Gestec Properties to build a Hotel Ibis and office center.
About 500 hotels have been constructed worldwide by Gestec’s parent company, the Accor Group of Paris. Fourteen of those are in the United States. Construction of the Carson project could be under way by March, according to the developer and city officials.
As approved by the City Council, acting as the Carson Redevelopment Agency, the city will subsidize the redevelopment project by selling 6.33 acres of Civic Center property for $3.25 million--about $1 million less than the city paid for the land. Such subsidies are legal under California redevelopment law.
The seven-story hotel would be at Carson and Bonita streets, just off the San Diego Freeway. It is planned to include a 160-seat restaurant, a lounge, executive meeting rooms, a pool and spa and a roof garden terrace. The hotel would be connected by an outdoor plaza to the 120,000-square-foot office complex, which is intended to house a major financial institution and several other corporations.
“We would like to create a landmark along the freeway,” said Christian Frere, president of Gestec Properties.
Frere said his firm will use its own money--through a parent company, Los Angeles-based Indo Suez Bank--to build the project, which is to be patterned after a development in San Francisco. Frere said Accor Group is the seventh-largest hotel developer in the world.
Architectural plans still must be approved by the Carson Planning Commission. In addition, council members must approve a formal contract with the firm. The contract will be considered at a public hearing within several months.
Construction could be completed by spring of 1987, Frere said.
The new proposal comes in the wake of nearly three years of unsuccessful efforts to build a Hilton hotel in Carson. Those plans were abandoned in early September by the developer, the Feinberg Group, which said it lacked financing and had persistent problems in city negotiations. The delays cost the city about $150,000 in interest on the loan needed to buy the property, city staff said.
Carson officials have long sought a hotel as an image-enhancing, revenue-attracting centerpiece for the largely industrial city. They believe such a development will foster other high-quality construction in Carson.
