O.C. Investors Buy Registry Hotel in Irvine, to Reopen as Radisson

An Orange County investors group said Thursday it has bought the bankrupt Registry Hotel in Irvine for $26 million and plans to renovate the closed, 293-room hotel and begin operating it in October as a Radisson Plaza franchise.

GMY Investment Co., a Newport Beach limited partnership of five investors, said it bought the hotel June 29 from Homestead Savings & Loan in San Francisco, the principal creditor of the Registry, and immediately changed its name to the Radisson Plaza Hotel.

The Registry, which was the first upscale hotel near John Wayne Airport when it opened in 1976, abruptly closed Feb. 8 and laid off its 230 workers after failing to find a buyer or make a required debt payment.

The investor group that bought the hotel last week said Aref Haffar, a former vice president of Servico, a hotel management company based in Florida, has been chosen as the hotel’s managing director.

Homestead officials could not be reached Thursday for comment. John Craddock, senior vice president of Radisson Hotels International Inc., confirmed that the Minneapolis hotel firm last week approved a franchise agreement with GMY.

Craddock said Radisson had been looking at least two years for a hotel franchise in the vicinity of the airport and considered the Registry, on MacArthur Boulevard across from the airport, to have “a fabulous location.”

The Irvine hotel and an all-suite facility being built near Cal State Fullerton represent Radisson’s entry into Orange County. Craddock said he is also negotiating another franchise in Anaheim.

Radisson has 204 hotels worldwide, including 135 in the United States, most of which are in the Midwest and East.

Through a franchising program begun in 1985, Craddock said, the company has started a vigorous expansion.

He said Radisson is expanding its hotel chain fastest in California, where it already has agreements to add 16 franchise hotels from Ventura County to the Mexican border by 1990.

He said the firm is also negotiating five or six more Southern California deals.

Craddock said Radisson realizes that the hotel in Irvine is in a very competitive market and intends to give it “strong support,” including access to the chain’s national reservation system and referrals from the company’s sister travel agencies.

Radisson is a division of the Carlson Cos., a diversified firm with annual revenue of $5 billion. Carlson has a large travel component, including the Ask Mr. Foster and Neiman Marcus Travel agencies.

Sandra Louvier, a hotel specialist for the Laventhol & Horwath accounting firm in Costa Mesa, said it would “definitely be positive for the hotel to have a chain name and a national reservation system.”

She said the Registry fell on hard times as a result of intense competition in the airport area. In 1985-87, more than 1,000 rooms a year were added to the luxury hotel market in the area, according to Laventhol & Horwath.

Louvier said the hotel also suffered when it had to redirect customers to other, newer hotels during renovation. When the renovation was over, she said, the hotel could not lure back all its former customers.

Haffar, the hotel’s new managing director, said the new owners intend to spend $2 million to $3 million on further renovations before the hotel reopens.

He said the owners will paint the building, refurbish the entry and lobby and remodel guest rooms to include special features for business travelers, including two telephone lines and wiring for computers and fax machines.

He said plans also call for adding a second ballroom and more meeting space.