GARDEN GROVE : Hotel’s Developer Accepts Height Rule

A developer seeking to build a three-story, 168-room hotel in Garden Grove will proceed with the plans and accept city requirements that the development be elevated five feet or more because of flood concerns.

The City Council, sitting as the Agency for Community Development, was presented Monday with a letter from La Quinta Inns stating that it will either submit new grading plans by Dec. 11 for the project on a 2.8-acre site at the northwest corner of Haster Street and Garden Grove Boulevard, or it will agree to step aside for another developer if, “in La Quinta’s sole opinion,” the raising of the development would make it economically unfeasible.

One estimate put the cost of the additional grading at $500,000. La Quinta’s decision on the $8-million project will be announced at the Dec. 11 meeting.

“It looks like we’re back on track,” said Councilman J. Tilman Williams, who is chairman of the redevelopment agency.

On Oct. 23, the agency determined that La Quinta, based in San Antonio, was in default of its development agreement with Garden Grove because it had not submitted completed plans indicating a five-foot elevation above ground level.

That elevation is required, the city maintained, because of federal regulations regarding new construction in the Santa Ana River flood plain area. But Ralph D. Barrett, Western division sales manager for the hotel company, told the agency at that time that recent improvements to the levees and bridges of the river should remove the project from the flood-plain hazard area.

La Quinta relented on that score Monday but will still seek a variance from federal regulations that would allow it to build the project at a level lower than now required.

As part of the agreement worked out Monday afternoon between city staff members and La Quinta, the hotel company would not forfeit $50,000 if further study shows that the project would be too costly.

Garden Grove has been seeking to develop the site for years, hoping that the project, which would also include a restaurant, would be a catalyst for new development in an area dotted with bars and automotive repair shops.