Bartell Hotels Buys Lease on Dana Inn

After eight months on the market, the lease on the Dana Inn & Marina on Mission Bay has finally been sold by Great Pacific Hotels for $13 million.

The buyer, Bartell Hotels, a family-owned limited partnership, owns several other area hotels and motels, including two properties purchased from Great Pacific in 1984.

Richard Bartell, one of the general partners, said that his family will operate the 196-room Dana Inn as-is “for the short-term,” but eventually plans to raze the facility and construct a “first-class resort.”

Both the sale and any new development on the city-owned land would need approval by the City of San Diego’s Property Department, Bartell said.

The sale is expected to close escrow by year’s end, he added.

The Bartell group has been “looking at the property for some time,” Bartell said.

The Dana Inn also contains a 141-slip boat marina and a 4,500-square-foot restaurant. There are more than 30 years remaining on the 50-year lease at the 8-acre site.

In late 1984, Bartell Hotels bought the leases for the Seapoint Hotel on Harbor Island and the Half Moon Inn on Shelter Island from Great Pacific.

The Dana Inn transaction leaves Great Pacific with only the La Jolla Village Inn under its management control. The company also previously operated the downtown Executive Hotel and the Radisson Hotel in Mission Valley.

The company, owned by publicity-shy developers Henry A. Gotthelf and Nevins McBride and managed by President Jim Durbin, is trying to secure construction financing for a 176-room, golf and tennis resort on 145 acres in Rancho Penasquitos. Ground has yet to be broken.

Both the Dana Inn and La Jolla Village Inn were quietly put on the market in March, with an asking price of $16 million each.

The La Jolla property is still for sale, Durbin said Monday. However, a decision to sell it would need approval from a San Francisco real estate syndication firm, which owns a portion of the property.