Move Over, Surfers : Huntington Beach’s Waterfront Project Would Start With a Hilton if OKd

On the Waterfront is coming to Huntington Beach. But don’t expect to see Marlon Brando.

What you should be able to see is a $350-million, mixed-use development, starting with a Hilton Hotel.

Hilton Hotels Corp. this week confirmed that it has agreed to open a $33-million hotel in Huntington Beach--one of the few resort areas in Orange County that doesn’t already have a glut of hotels. The 12-story, 300-room hotel is the first of four planned for the Waterfront, the $350-million development on Pacific Coast Highway between Beach Boulevard and Huntington Street.

The resort-style hotel, residential and retail complex will be built by Newport Beach-based Robert Mayer Corp. over the next 10 years.

When completed, blueprints call for the Waterfront to have six phases, including nine tennis courts, four hotels and 75,000 square feet of smaller retail shops. Half of the 50-acre parcel will be used for an 875-unit residential development.

The Hilton Hotel would be in the project’s first phase. Construction is scheduled to begin in November at the northeast corner of Huntington Street and Pacific Coast Highway, with the Hilton to open for business in April, 1990.

The project still needs final approval from the city before ground can be broken. Mayer is scheduled to appear before the Planning Commission in May. After that, the developer is expected to go before the city Redevelopment Agency in early June for approval of the project’s business terms.

The Waterfront development marks Huntington Beach’s first real step toward transforming itself into a destination spot for tourist and business travelers--a goal of the lackluster, coastal city that is now known mostly for its surfers and oil wells.

Some Orange County areas--notably the airport area, Newport Beach and Anaheim--have plenty of empty rooms. But the Mayer project would be located directly across the street from the ocean.

“There are 12 million to 15 million people in Southern California and less than a handful of first-class facilities that have that ocean orientation,” said Stephen K. Bone, Mayer’s executive director. Mayer predicts that the project will appeal to vacationers, business executives and local residents from up to four counties away.

“We’re going to have 40% tourist trade, 40% business market and 20% convention market,” he said. “There are 250,000 people in Huntington Beach and the Fountain Valley area who have a tremendous need for first-class (meeting and banquet) facilities,” Bone explained.

David R. Kinkade of Laventhol & Horwath’s Costa Mesa office, a consultant to Mayer, agrees that Huntington Beach can support the project. “It takes an extra 10 minutes to drive (from the airport) to the beach to have a nice place to stay right on the sand. And there are a lot of people who would like to get out of the hustle and bustle of the John Wayne (Airport) area,” he said.

The Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley area now has about 400 hotel rooms--or 1.6% of the total in Orange County, Kinkade said.

He added that the Huntington Beach Hilton also will have the advantage of a national, corporate reservation system. “There’ll be that many more dollars marketing Orange County across the U.S. for Hilton,” he said.

Plans call for the hotel to be run by Dallas-based Signet Corp., a hotel-management company that oversees the Washington Plaza Hotel in Washington.