2 Hotels: Onion and a Mixed Bag

This column began as “Downtown’s Lousy New Hotels,” a look at the latest Ramada and Embassy Suites. But, after some investigation, the title proved only 50% workable.

As expected, the new Ramada Hotel, at 6th Avenue and K Street, a winner of an Onion in last year’s Orchids and Onions architecture competition, grows more pungent the longer you linger there. But the Embassy Suites Hotel at Market Street and Pacific Coast Highway reveals some pleasant surprises.

At first glance, the Embassy building looks a little Disneylandish, washed in the chain’s signature soft peach color topped with green domes at the corner towers. But you should have seen it before the Centre City Development Corp. pushed Embassy to upgrade its stock cookie-cutter design, the same boxy atrium scheme it used for its Golden Triangle hotel across from University Towne Centre.

“We were able to convince them that the architecture of the hotel should be more compatible with the architecture in that portion of the city, like the police station,” said Max Schmidt, the CCDC’s urban design expert.

Schmidt was referring to the ‘30s-era police building across Market Street from the hotel, soon to become Seaport Village, Part II.

“We were able to get them to treat the facade and change the roof elements. We influenced them on materials, signing, landscaping and siting the entry.”

The hotel’s brand of jerry-rigged Spanish Revival does relate to the station, but the building has drawbacks, Schmidt readily acknowledged.

“I think the scale is too large, mostly because of the atrium. Still, it’s an improvement on what it might be. It takes on some of the Mediterranean flavor of the city.”

The worst thing about the building’s perimeter is that it fails to adequately accommodate pedestrians. This is clearly a car-oriented building, with an auto entry not particularly hospitable to foot traffic, and with a delicate shaded arcade down the side of the building--for cars, not for people.

There are gestures toward humans, including an outdoor mall on the east side of the building, with a hair salon, barber shop and deli. But, tucked behind the massive building, it’s in the shade by early afternoon. This may become a more active place if a similar pedestrian plaza is included in Santa Fe Development’s proposed residential development just across G Street from the Embassy.

Tables near the sidewalk outside the hotel restaurant at least allow some interplay between users of the hotel and those who pass on foot.

Inside, the Embassy is a great place for pedestrians. For activity and sheer enjoyment, you can’t beat the interior atrium of this hotel. It makes an atrium like the one at the First National Bank building downtown seem like Dante’s Inferno. A landscaped plaza includes man-made ponds, complete with ducks. Exotic greenery surrounds you as you cross a diagonal walkway, which eventually bridges the water. Diners in the nearby hotel restaurant have an open view of this tropical garden.

Horizontal railings on 13 floors of outdoor corridors ringing the courtyard set up great rhythms. Lush vines spill over the edges of planters. Capping the space is a huge skylight, mostly green but clear in the middle, allowing a shot of blue sky.

The only thing missing here is a fresh, natural smell. Too bad the rooftop skylights couldn’t have been motorized to open at the flick of a switch on warm days. As it is, the atmosphere is that headache-inducing airport and department store blend of filtered air, vague cooked food smells and distant cigarettes.

From outside the Embassy, the Ramada several blocks away doesn’t look bad at all, cutting a 22-story white, modernist profile against the sky.

Up close, though, it’s a nightmare. The seven-story parking garage has large, poorly detailed horizontal openings that reveal pipes, chain-link fence and assorted duct work. By contrast, the actual hotel portion of the building isn’t bad, with its steel balcony railings setting up a pleasing exterior pattern.

All around, the base of the building has nothing to interest pedestrians. A convenience store and restaurant flanking the main entrance on K Street look out on the street through deeply tinted glass. Any attempt to see in from outside is like trying to make eye contact with a person wearing Ray Bans. Even worse, the architects--staff people at Concrete Dynamics, also the contractor--made no attempt to hide service functions. Thus, along 7th Avenue alone there are five prison-like steel service doors.

A trip up the elevators takes you to more design purgatory. Someone was inspired to put an exercise room and giant spa on the roof to take full advantage of the marvelous bay view, including the new convention center in the foreground and the Coronado Bridge beyond. But there is absolutely no evidence that the architects were concerned for the happiness of the people who use this area.

The hum of rooftop mechanical equipment, secured behind a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, drowns out any atmospheric urban sounds that might be available. The flooring is simply that gray decking stuff you paint on to create a water- and slip-proof surface in a hurry. There are no plants here, or any design features that might bring the place to life.

Unfortunately, Ramada got its hotel design through the city’s Planning Department before more stringent guidelines were set up for this area, just east of the Gaslamp Quarter. Even now, a debate is raging about the height and design of future hotels nearby in the Gaslamp, with the Ramada serving as a valuable lesson of how not to do things.

Admittedly, a hotel’s primary purpose is to put up visitors in comfortable rooms. But it doesn’t hurt if their experience of the building, both inside and out, is pleasurable. And it’s even better when a giant downtown hotel gives something back to the life of a city’s streets. On this last count, the Embassy gets a C-plus, while the Ramada fails miserably.