Huntington Beach Oceanfront Resort Project Resurfaces

Developers of Surf City’s long-delayed oceanfront resort project Monday unveiled plans for a new $100-million hotel, conference and retail center--the latest reincarnation of a development that has been stalled since the late 1980s.

The plans put forth by the Robert Mayer Corp., owner of the Waterfront Hilton which sits on 3.5 acres of the 50-acre site, supersede a time-share project announced by the company just last year.

The developer has yet to secure financing for the project or to work out a new agreement with the Huntington Beach Redevelopment Agency, which owns the oceanfront parcel which runs along Pacific Coast Highway from Huntington Street to Beach Boulevard.

But California’s robust economy, surging tourism and a real estate recovery have convinced the Mayer company that Orange County is ready for new hotel development after years of inactivity, said Steve Bone, president and chief executive of Robert Mayer Corp.

“This shows our confidence in the recovery of the hotel market,” said Bone, who expects groundbreaking for the project in early 1998, with completion by fall 1999. “We believe the time is right.”

Plans call for the construction of a 500-room, four-story, Mediterranean-style hotel dubbed the Waterfront Grand Resort Hotel. The complex would feature ocean-view courtyards with pools and spas, tennis courts, a fitness center, a children’s play center, a retail center and other amenities on the resort grounds. A new pedestrian bridge over Pacific Coast Highway would give resort visitors easy access to the beach.

The developer also plans to construct an 80,000-square-foot conference center between the new hotel and the existing Waterfront Hilton.

Industry analysts say the meeting space would help fill the resort’s hotel rooms with business travelers during the slow winter months. It would also position Huntington Beach to better compete in the growing market for meetings and conventions, said Diane Baker, president of the Huntington Beach Conference and Visitors Bureau.

“The conference space would be a major selling point,” Baker said. “Right now we just don’t have the capacity that meeting planners are looking for.”

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The Robert Mayer Corp. also is proposing some residential development for the site, which could include as many as 350 duplexes, townhomes and cluster homes with prices ranging from $200,000 to $350,000.

The Newport Beach developer likewise envisions a second phase of development, to commence after the the turn of the century, which would add 250 rooms and a 12,000-square-foot ballroom to the existing 290-room Waterfront Hilton.

Bone says he has been talking to Wall Street investment firms about potential financing for the resort project. He said he anticipates that the city of Huntington Beach will need to kick in as much as $15 million to help prepare the site for development, including soil cleanup, sewers, relocation of a mobile home park and demolition of the shuttered Huntington Beach Inn on the parcel.

David Biggs, director of economic development for Huntington Beach, said the city likes the hotel project because it could pump as much as $2 million in additional bed tax revenue into city coffers each year.

But he declined to speculate how much the city would be willing to pay for site cleanup and infrastructure improvements.

“All that is on the table again,” Biggs said. “Exactly who is going to pay for it and the timing has yet to be determined. We need to sit down and look at the numbers.”

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A slew of local hotels has changed hands over the last year as financing for the purchase of existing properties has heated up. Still, funding for new hotel projects has been harder to come by in Southern California, where strong hotel demand is just now catching up with the overbuilding glut of 1980s, according to Anaheim hotel broker Donald Wise.

“It’s somewhat early in the recovery process to talk about developing new full-service hotels,” Wise said. “But if the demand is there, I’m sure the ownership will be able to finance the [Huntington Beach] project.”

The Newport Beach developer unveiled ambitious plans for the Huntington Beach coastline parcel in the late 1980s, including plans to construct three additional hotels, a retail complex and condominiums.

But funding dried up during the recession and Robert Mayer Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 1993. It emerged from bankruptcy in 1995.