Del Mar Takes Sides Over Plans for Hotel in Center of Tiny City

Both sides agree that the hotel proposed for a prime corner in the heart of Del Mar will change the community forever.

After that, they don’t agree on anything.

Not the height of the hotel, the number of rooms, its impact on traffic, whether it’s a good financial deal for the city, or whether it will bring back the village ambiance of the Hotel Del Mar, a revered local institution for 60 years before succumbing to old age and termites in 1969.

The final say rests with voters in a special election Sept. 22.

Last Major Site

At issue is whether to allow a hotel, 24 time-share condominiums and a complex of retail shops at the vacant site of the Hotel Del Mar on the northwestern corner of Camino Del Mar and 15th Street. It is the last major undeveloped site in the tiny downtown.

Jim Watkins, the developer, sees the new hotel as restoring Old World grace to Del Mar by providing a public park, a meeting room, a restaurant, and a spacious lobby with a large fireplace--a place where residents would feel comfortable sipping tea or chatting about civic affairs, just like in the old days.

“We have designed the inn as small as possible,” Watkins said. “If this is not what the community wants, a tradition will be lost forever. We want an inn that serves as a gathering spot for the community, not just another block of rooms.”

Members of Citizens for Sensible Growth, the local slow-growth group, are not buying Watkins’ argument.

More Tourists Seen

The group’s chairman, SDSU political science professor Ivo K. Feierabend, says Watkins’ hotel will bring more tourists and more traffic, particularly when coupled with the shopping center being built across Camino Del Mar.

“The sentiment of our community is ‘small’ and Watkins’ strategy has been to describe everything as a picturesque village inn when, in fact, this is a prescription for urban development a la La Jolla,” Feierabend said.

“What is happening here is the La Jolla-ization of Del Mar. That’s what we want to stop.”

The proposed hotel--tentatively named the Village Inn--was approved by a 3-2 vote of the City Council, and council members have carried their disagreements to the public.

Mayor a Strong Supporter

Mayor Ronnie Delaney is one of the strongest supporters of the project, boosting it as a good use for the property and a good way for the city to get money for a library and fire station.

Watkins has pledged to pay the city $70,000 a year up to a total of $2 million, as well as making street and drainage improvements. The hotel will also provide an estimated $250,000 a year in room taxes--in a city with a $5 million a year budget.

“I think the problem is that there is a mindset in this community that says nothing should ever be built anywhere,” Delaney said. “But if you look at it logically, and balance the benefits to the city against the benefits to the property owner, this is a good project.

“The public has to realize that the site is not going to remain open space. The city does not own it, and it will be developed one way or another.”

Sale Vowed

If the ballot measure fails, Watkins has vowed to sell a third of the 5.2-acre site for commercial development and use the rest for 41 apartments. The deal will not include any money for a library or fire station, he said.

“The community could end up with a Diego’s on this site,” said Watkins, a reference to the raucous nightspot in Solana Beach. But only if voters approve.

Under Proposition B, approved by voters in April 1986, any commercial project along Camino Del Mar must be submitted to voters. Apartment and condominium projects are not covered.

Watkins, a Del Mar resident, owns the 83-room Del Mar Inn and the Stratford Square building just south of the proposed hotel.

Firm’s Projects

Watkins’ development firm, Del Mar-based Winner’s Circle Resorts, is involved in time-share condominium developments in Solana Beach, Carlsbad and Oceanside and is restoring the Horton Plaza Hotel in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter.

With his references to the Hotel Del Mar, Watkins’ has tapped into possibly the oldest and most cherished civic memory in this upscale seaside community.

The hotel, first called the Stratford Inn, was opened in March 1909 by William Kerckhoff, a millionaire financier from Los Angeles who wanted to turn Del Mar into an exclusive resort town all done up in Elizabethan architecture.

The renaming to Hotel Del Mar occurred in 1926. Just a short walk from the train station, the hotel was particularly popular with the movie crowd from Hollywood and society figures lured by the racing season. At the hotel, guests mingled with residents of the tiny village.

Life Centered on Hotel

“For decades, life in Del Mar revolved around the Hotel Del Mar,” said Nancy Ewing, a reporter for the Del Mar/Solana Beach Surfcomber newspaper who has written a history of Del Mar entitled “Del Mar Looking Back.”

“Everything was either at the hotel, for the hotel, or by the hotel,” Ewing said. “It dominated the cultural and social life of the village. It was THE place to go. When it got a liquor license, everyone went to the King’s Lounge, the Knight’s Lounge or the Pago Pago Room.”

“High school prom, parties, town meetings, weddings, receptions, poetry readings, everything happened at the hotel,” she said.

Kerchkhoff’s dream of a theme-park village was never realized as homes for permanent residents along with Spanish and Mediterranean architecture found their way into the community.

Razed in 1969

The hotel was sold shortly after World War II and went through a succession of owners, bankruptcies and false starts, before being abandoned to transients and pigeons in the mid-1960s and torn down in 1969. The site has been vacant since.

“Without the Hotel Del Mar, the Del Mar of today would not exist,” said Ewing.

Under city orders, Watkins has pitched a tent at Camino Del Mar and 15th Street so voters can inspect a scale-model of his plan and ask questions. Along with his fact sheets are pictures of the Hotel Del Mar in its heyday, including its mammoth fireplace.

At a recent press conference, he announced that the hotel manager will be Georg Hochfilzer, former manager of the Westgate Hotel in downtown San Diego and more recently a manager at the Fairbanks Country Club. Watkins introduced him as “a third-generation innkeeper.”

‘Focal Point’

“An inn is something very personal and something a community can cherish,” Hochfilzer said. “We want to create a home away from home, either for visitors or residents. Anyone who has been to Europe knows that the focal point of a community is its inn.

“In the heart of Del Mar, we don’t have an inn,” he added. “Unless you have an inn where you can go and enjoy yourself, you really can’t have the true village feel.”

Leaders of the opposition have a simple response: Bunk.

They say the hotel (they refuse to call it an inn) and the shopping complex being built across Camino Del Mar will overrun Del Mar with tourists and tourist trappings--boutiques, kite stores, fudge emporiums, T-shirt shops.

They doubt that guests paying $150 a night will cotton to non-paying residents sharing the lobby or grounds.

Grocery Market Promised

The project, they say, violates the spirit of the General Plan which calls for “resident serving” retail stores, not stores for tourists. A major attraction of the shopping center, approved by a 41-vote margin in a special election in February, was the promise of a grocery market.

“Despite all the talk about the Old World atmosphere, Watkins’ hotel is for tourists, not for residents,” said Citizens for Sensible Growth member Bill Malone, a computer programmer. “Money for the library is the bribe, but in the process, our way of life will be ruined.”

Chuck Newton, a retired advertising and public relations executive, estimates that the hotel would add $3 million to the value of Watkins’ property. Even after the $2 million is paid to the city, Watkins comes out a financial winner, and the city a loser, Newton said.

“You can never bring back the Hotel Del Mar,” said Councilman John Gillies, who opposes Watkins. “It was the product of a day when Del Mar was an isolated community, without major roads to Los Angeles or San Diego. It was a little hotel (80 rooms) on a big piece of land, but it’s gone.”

Debate Involves Numbers

Much of the debate has involved numbers.

Watkins describes the hotel portion of the project as three stories tall and 125 units, with most of the project hidden from view by trees and the natural slope of the property. The tallest roof will be 22 feet above the curb of Camino Del Mar.

Opponents say the project is four stories and 133 units, if seen not westward from Camino Del Mar but eastward from near the Post Office and if double-rooms described as suites are counted individually.

The council debated long and hard over whether the bottom part of one building that includes an employee lounge, a gymnasium and a meeting room constitutes a full story or a basement. By the same 3-2 split that approved the project the council decided it was a basement, thus keeping the building at three stories, not four.

Watkins says the underground parking will accommodate guests and employees, but opponents say he has drastically underestimated the number of employees.

7,700 Square Feet of Shops

The full project includes 7,700 square feet of retail shops, 10,000 square feet of public park, and a 2,000-square-foot community room, scattered among seven buildings. The official statment on the sample ballot says the community room will be open to the public approximately six times a year.

The project design is red-brick walls, with brown-shake roofs, English but not Elizabethan. The lobby would have open-beam ceilings and a heavy use of wood. Project cost is set at $25 million.

An early poll showed a majority of citizens favoring a hotel on the site. But land-use politics are volatile in this city of 4,000 voters, and both sides have sent out leaflets. Each accuses the other of distortion.

“This is really the last commercial piece of property we have, and the hotel finishes off the town in a way I feel is appropriate,” said Mayor Delaney. “This appeals to all interests. It’s good for the city, good for Mr. Watkins. We will never get as good a project again.”

Counters Councilman Gillies:

“There is not a lot to do in Del Mar, and residents would like to keep it that way. Del Mar should be for residents, not tourists. We have the beach already. We don’t need other things to draw tourists.”