GARDEN GROVE : City Council to Rule on $8-Million Hotel

Whether a long-planned, three-story hotel project will proceed or go back to the drawing board may be determined at tonight’s meeting of the City Council.

The proposed La Quinta Inn hotel and restaurant project is planned for a 3.8-acre site on the northwest corner of Haster Street and Garden Grove Boulevard. The hotel would have 174 rooms. The project will cost about $8 million, according to Michael N. Napolitano, director of economic development for the city.

But La Quinta developers, based in San Antonio, have missed the deadline for submitting complete plans, which will be complicated by project’s location in the flood plain of the Santa Ana River. The Federal Emergency Management Agency requires that such a project be elevated five feet, to protect it from the rising waters of a 100-year flood--that is, a flood so severe it is expected to occur just once every century.

The Texas lodging firm stands to lose a $50,000 deposit if the agency decides that La Quinta has defaulted and cancels the development agreement now in place.