Firms Join to Build Hotel in Malibu : Development: The Adamson Cos. and a Japanese firm form a partnership on the proposed 300-room, $65-million hotel. The project faces opposition.
The Adamson Cos. has announced it will join forces with the firm that owns the Hotel Bel-Air to develop and manage a luxury hotel the company has long wanted to build overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu.
A company official hailed the agreement with the Sazale Corp., announced last week, as a “giant step toward ensuring that ours becomes a world-class hotel in Malibu.”
“We’re extremely pleased to have them as partners,” said Jay Hanan, director of real estate for the Adamson Cos., one of Malibu’s largest landowners. Besides the Hotel Bel-Air, which it purchased recently, Sazale, a Japanese firm, operates several other luxury hotels in the United States and France, including the Biltmore in downtown Los Angeles.
Hanan declined to disclose what stake each partner will have, saying details have yet to be worked out. But he said it was “very possible” that Sazale may become the majority partner.
“They’re obviously going to manage the hotel. We’re not in the hotel business,” he said. “We’re providing the land and some capital, and they will be providing the management and some capital.”
Although Adamson officials have said they hope to start soon on construction of the proposed 300-room, $65-million hotel on 27 acres near Pepperdine University, the project faces some potentially formidable obstacles.
In approving the hotel plan four years ago, the California Coastal Commission stipulated that a regional sewer system that Los Angeles County wants to build in Malibu must be in place before the hotel can open.
But with slow-growth advocates opposed to the sewer and the hotel, and the community set to become a city as soon as a court allows incorporation to go forward, the project faces an uncertain future.
Like the county with its sewer system, the Adamson Cos.--which has already spent more than $5 million on the project--had hoped to start work on the hotel before a new Malibu city government has the chance to block it.
On Wednesday, the company will ask the state coastal panel to approve an interim on-site waste disposal plan for the hotel in the event that the county’s proposed $43-million sewer system is delayed further.
In addition, final grading plans for the 27-acre site on a hillside above Pacific Coast Highway at Malibu Canyon Road must be approved by the coastal commission before construction can start. The commission, however, is not expected to consider the grading matter for at least another month.
The Adamson Cos. has won few friends among cityhood supporters, who accused it of working behind the scenes to defeat a cityhood effort in 1976. Pro-cityhood activists were angered last December when the company joined the county in a lawsuit intended to further delay a vote on cityhood.
Some cityhood supporters were amazed when several weeks before voters overwhelmingly approved cityhood June 5, Sylvia R.A. Neville, Adamson Cos.’ managing general partner, gave a rare interview to a Malibu newspaper in which she declared her support for cityhood.
Last year, the sewer’s opponents were upset when Neville and her sister, Rhoda-May Dallas, the firm’s other general partner, struck a private deal with the county to surrender six acres near Pepperdine as the site of a sewage treatment plant. In exchange, the county agreed to do its part to help speed construction of the hotel by processing a variety of permits in a timely fashion.
Through a spokesman, Neville said last week that she was “thrilled” to have Sazale as a partner in the hotel venture.
“The Sazale Corp. is sensitive to the unique and natural beauty of the Malibu area and is looking forward to working with community leaders to ensure that the needs of the community, as well as those of the hotel guests, are met,” Neville said.
Hanan, meanwhile, acknowledged that the company has sent letters to each of Malibu’s future City Council members, asking to meet with them and discuss the hotel plans.
As proposed, the hotel would include 15 low-lying Spanish-style villas nestled into the hillside, surrounded by extensive landscaping, including streams and fountains. There would be a free-standing restaurant at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Malibu Canyon Road, in addition to restaurants in the hotel.
“We think the community will welcome the hotel once they see what is planned,” said Hanan, who began working on the project about 18 months ago, after Neville and Dallas scrapped an earlier design.
Company officials say the villa design will be much less noticeable from the busy coastal highway, and its Spanish-style architecture will complement that at the university nearby.
