Monterey Park Approves Hotel Site Deal

Despite continued opposition by some residents, the City Council has approved paying $4 million for a seven-acre site at the Los Angeles Corporate Center, where a 225-room Embassy Suites Hotel would be developed.

The hotel project, approved by a 4-1 vote Monday, could result in the city’s gaining $750,000 in revenues and taxes annually, city officials say. Beyond that, City Manager Mark Lewis said the hotel would be a considerable boost to the overall economy of the community, which still faces budget problems and gets low revenue from sales taxes compared with surrounding cities.

The proposed six-story hotel, billed by city officials as a first-class business hotel, would overlook a residential neighborhood next to the corporate center on the city’s western edge along the Long Beach Freeway. It represents the largest and most complicated deal undertaken by the city’s Redevelopment Agency, Lewis said.

The council’s action authorized an agreement between the Los Angeles Corporate Center and the city. Under the plan, the city will pay $4 million to the Los Angeles Corporate Center for the land where the hotel would be built. In turn, as an enticement for the hotel developer, the city will sell the land for $2.5 million to GR Development and Robert E. Woolley Inc. The city would lose $1.5 million.

But within two to three years, Lewis said, the city will make that back in room taxes and sales taxes from the hotel, which is scheduled to have 6,500 square feet of banquet space and meeting rooms.

“It’s an excellent deal for us,” Lewis said. “Hotels of this nature are very hard to get, so it’s real feather in the city’s cap to get a hotel of this quality.”

But some residents criticized the plan. “How would you like a hotel in your back yard?” Cindy Yee asked. “You don’t see Pasadena, San Marino, Glendale or Beverly Hills slam-dunking a hotel in a neighborhood.”

She said the city was essentially subsidizing the developer. “If you and I bought a home, would the city help us make a down payment because they would make it up later on property taxes? And what happens if the hotel fails?”

Yee and others questioned the hotel development and its connection to an action the council took earlier this year when the city sold land on the west side of the Long Beach Freeway.

That property was sold for $3.5 million to Los Angeles County, which plans a court building for abused and neglected children. The city for several years had tried to market the land as a hotel site. Then officials devised plans for a hotel at the corporate center.

Mayor Pro Tem Judy Chu defended the proposal, saying officials considered the neighbors’ concerns. But she said studies show a need for a hotel, and it would lessen the city’s money problems.

Councilman Christopher F. Houseman, who cast the lone vote against the proposal, said he agreed that the city needs a hotel but questions this project. “This deal is being broken up into little chunks. The only responsible way to do this is to get the whole picture, the whole outline of the deal.”