Garden Grove Council Paves Way for 5.5-Acre Hotel-Office Complex

The City Council this week paved the way for a San Dimas firm to build a hotel-office project at Haster Street and Garden Grove Boulevard.

The council voted unanimously Monday night in favor of a 180-day exclusive negotiating agreement with National Capital Development Corp. to develop a 5.5-acre site near the Garden Grove Freeway in the eastern part of the city.

The proposed project includes an eight-story hotel with 150 rooms, a five-story office building, a 9,000-square-foot restaurant and 12,000 square feet of retail shops between the office and hotel buildings.

According to City Manager George Tindall, the city is currently considering several “nationally known hotel operators” to manage the hotel, where rates would range from $55 to $75 per night.

Before approving the agreement, the council also authorized paying $595,790 for a parcel of land on the site. Buying the 14,454-square-foot piece of land, now occupied by a one-story medical laboratory building, leaves only one more parcel to purchase to consolidate the 5.5-acre site.

“When you have 35 new hotels in the Anaheim area, and we sit with just one (the Hyatt Alicante at Chapman Avenue and Harbor Boulevard), we’ve got to move like this to get the tax dollars we need in this community,” said Councilman Frank Kessler.

He praised the city staff for finding a new developer quickly after La Quinta Inns withdrew from an earlier agreement.

The Texas-based hotel chain had planned to build a three-story motel on the site but balked over the cost of meeting federal flood protection guidelines and withdrew from its agreement with the city in December, 1989.