Groundbreaking Scheduled for 1st Major Hotel

Construction of Glendale’s first major hotel--with meeting rooms, banquet facilities and a rooftop lounge--will begin Tuesday with a groundbreaking ceremony for the $36-million Red Lion Inn.

Completion of the 350-room, 18-story project is expected to take two years, with the opening scheduled in late June, 1992, said Jeanne Armstrong, redevelopment director.

The hotel is the first such project to be undertaken in the downtown redevelopment zone. It is expected to fill a void for social and business facilities in the community and to serve as a convention center. Meetings and social functions of local groups are now held in Pasadena, Burbank or elsewhere.

The hotel will be built on Glenoaks Boulevard, between Brand Boulevard and Central Avenue. The site spans the Verdugo Wash, which is being covered with a concrete lid and will be landscaped to form a park along Glenoaks in front of the hotel.

City officials and hotel executives are scheduled to attend the public groundbreaking ceremony, to be held at 11 a.m. at the development site.