Ritz-Carlton Hotel to Be Built in La Jolla Area : Development: The $59-million, 210-room luxury facility will be located near the UC San Diego campus.
Once severely lacking in hotel rooms, the La Jolla area has seen its share of new hotel openings of late. And now the area has another new hotel in its future: a new 210-room, $59-million Ritz-Carlton luxury hotel to be located near the UC San Diego campus.
Groundbreaking for the hotel situated in the Blackhorse Farms development on Torrey Pines has been scheduled for late next month. Upon completion in late 1991, the hotel will be the third major hotel to have opened in the La Jolla area in two years. The 400-room Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine opened in January and the 400-room Sheraton Grand at Torrey Pines opened last November.
The hotel, to be known formally as the Ritz-Carlton La Jolla Conference Resort, is a development of Flagship Group of La Jolla, which is headed by John O’Brien. As with so many other Southern California real estate developments of late, the financing package includes a Japanese investor, Chiemori La Jolla.
There are currently 13 Ritz-Carlton luxury hotels in operation in the United States, including an ocean-side resort in Dana Point. A subsidiary of W.B. Johnson Properties of Atlanta, Ritz-Carlton plans to open six additional hotels over the next year, including resorts in Marina del Rey this summer and in San Francisco in January, 1991.
Last year, Ritz-Carlton tried unsuccessfully to win development rights to the Aviara resort complex in Carlsbad, a property formerly owned by the Hunt brothers of Dallas but which was later acquired by Hillman Properties. The Four Seasons hotel chain of Toronto backed by Japanese investors won the Aviara development rights instead.
The La Jolla project will consist of 210 single-story guest rooms spread over a 9.5-acre site, three tennis courts, about 20,000 square feet of meeting space and a 7,500-square-foot ballroom, O’Brien said.
The hotel is part of the 23-acre Blackhorse Farms development site that Flagship leased from owner UC San Diego in 1986. The site was formerly used as a thoroughbred horse training and boarding facility.
Blackhorse Farms’ other principal element is a 121-unit luxury town home development. All but one of the units have been sold at prices ranging from $450,000 to $600,000 each, O’Brien said. The units were built by Davidson Communities.
The architect of the new La Jolla hotel is the Newport Beach-based firm Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, which also designed the Four Seasons resort in Newport Beach as well as Ritz-Carlton hotels in Dana Point and Naples, Fla.
