U.S. and Japanese Developers Building Major Hotel Near Disneyland

A $28-million, 467-room Ramada--the first major hotel to rise near Disneyland and the Anaheim Convention Center since 1984--is being built on one of the last vacant tracts in the heavily developed tourist mecca.

Construction began in late August at the 4.3-acre tract, located across Harbor Boulevard from Disneyland. The hotel and a one-story restaurant will be geared toward family vacationers.

The hotel and restaurant are being developed by a partnership that includes Seaport Manfred, a San Diego-based hotel developer and operator, and JDC (America) Corp., a Miami-based subsidiary of a large Japanese real estate development firm.

The Santa Ana office of California First Bank is providing construction financing. Permanent financing is being negotiated, according to a Seaport Manfred spokesman.

The Ramada will be the first large hotel to be completed near Disneyland and the convention center since mid-1984, when Hilton opened a 1,600-room hotel and Emerald opened a 500-room hotel, according to industry analysts.

“There’s still some room, but it’s sure getting tight,” said Bill Snyder, president of the Anaheim Visitor & Convention Bureau. “When I got here in 1968, there were (about) 2,500 rooms and the Disneyland Hotel had 400 rooms.”

The Ramada would boost Anaheim’s hotel room total to about 15,000. More than 12,000 of those rooms are located within a mile of Disneyland or the convention center, Snyder said.

The city’s room count rose by about 4,000 during 1984, he said, and several smaller hotels have been added during the last three years.

Average annual occupancy rates at Anaheim hotels have hovered between 71% and 74%, according to Snyder. “Even in 1984 when all those rooms were added, occupancy rates stayed level,” Snyder added.

The Ramada, which is scheduled to open in July, 1988, will sit on a tract that Disney had held as surplus until selling it in 1984, according to a Seaport Manfred spokesman. JDC and Seaport Manfred acquired the land for an undisclosed sum earlier this year from Brea-based D&D; Development.

The Ramada isn’t the first hotel proposed for the tract. In 1984, when Disney still owned the land, a developer wanted to build a Red Lion hotel. That project never materialized, however, and the land evidently changed hands at least once before the JDC and Seaport Manfred partnership acquired it, according to the Seaport Manfred spokesman.