Japanese Money Brings Resort Closer to Reality : Development: The long-delayed project near Coronado Cays is now expected to be completed in 1991.
A long-delayed resort hotel planned for Coronado finally seems on the verge of reality with the signing of four giant Japanese firms as investors and the announcement Wednesday that Long Term Credit Bank of Japan has agreed to finance the deal.
Construction on the 450-room, 13-acre development, to be called Loews Coronado Bay Resort, will start in May, with completion expected in December, 1991, according to lead developers Josef and Lenore Citron, owners of Joelen Enterprises of Coronado.
The three-story, $88-million project will go up on Crown Isle at the north end of the Coronado Cays residential development on San Diego Bay. It will include a 97-slip marina, three tennis courts, two restaurants and several retail shops, Josef Citron said Wednesday.
The Japanese investors are Marubeni Corp., one of Japan’s five largest general trading companies; Kumagai Gumi Co. Ltd., one of Japan’s largest construction companies; Kawasaki Steel Corp., part of the Kawasaki Group multi-industry conglomerate, and Tekken Construction Co. Ltd.
The Loews Coronado Bay Resort is only the latest of several San Diego County resort and hotel developments that have attracted Japanese investment in recent months. Last September, the 300-room Le Meridien hotel in Coronado was acquired by Chiyoda Finance of Tokyo for more than $80 million.
Also last year, TSA International, a Honolulu-based company that makes U. S. real estate investments for Japanese deal maker Takeshi Sekiguchi, became a major investor in the Four Seasons Aviara Resort planned for Carlsbad. Sport Shinko of Osaka bought the La Costa Resort Hotel for $250 million in 1987.
The Loews Coronado Bay Resort project will be a mile south of downtown Coronado along California 75, also known as Silver Strand Boulevard.
The hotel’s Coronado Cays site is owned by the San Diego Unified Port District and leased to Coronado Cays developer Signal Landmark. In 1985, the Citrons acquired Signal Landmark’s lease of the Crown Isle parcel and set about to develop it.
The Citrons’ first announced a development deal in 1986 whereby the Hilton hotel chain would operate the resort. But the deal fell through after Hilton redirected its new hotel development focus on convention and casino properties, Citron said Wednesday.
After a protracted planning process, the city of Coronado gave the Citrons permission to develop the site after the developers agreed to build a new access road from California 75 so guests’ cars would not congest the Coronado Cays residential area, Mayor Mary Herron said.
Although describing the hotel development proposal in positive terms, Herron said Coronado has little planning authority over the property because it is on Port District tidelands.
“The agreement that the developer will put in a second entrance was a success for us,” Herron said. “We have accepted the fact of a hotel being there. It’s part of the port’s master plan. Construction is timely.”
Transient occupancy taxes generated by the hotel could net Coronado more than $400,000 per year, Herron said.
Citron said his past developments include tract and custom houses and apartment buildings, mainly in the Los Angeles area. Loews, which is part of an entertainment and hotel concern owned by CBS President Lawrence Tisch and his family, operates 16 hotels, including the recently opened Santa Monica Beach Hotel.
