Ritz-Carlton to Build Irvine Hotel
A new Ritz-Carlton hotel designed for sophisticated business travelers will be built in Irvine’s Park Place near the San Diego Freeway, developers announced Friday.
The 15-story, 301-room hotel will cost $85 million and is expected to open in December 2001.
The developers of Park Place, Crow Winthrop Development LP, hope the Atlanta-based hotel chain’s prestige and reputation for luxury will help attract top-drawer tenants for 1.7 million square feet of office space still available in the complex, a company spokesman said.
Crow Winthrop Development is owned principally by current and former Trammell Crow Co. partners.
Irvine officials crowed over the news, saying the arrival of the city’s 11th hotel solidifies it as a destination for business people. Irvine has a Marriott and a Hyatt Regency, and officials said a Doubletree is opening next month.
“As far as the city’s concerned, a Ritz-Carlton would add a major component to the (Park Place) complex,” said Larry Larsen, Irvine’s manager of economic development. “It just confirms the economic growth and vitality of the area.”
The 90-acre site where the San Diego Freeway crosses Jamboree Road is home to a 10-screen movie theater, shops, restaurants, a 10-story office tower and six smaller office buildings.
Plans for the Ritz-Carlton Irvine at Park Place include 32 suites, a health spa, a rooftop restaurant and two special “club” floors with a concierge, a private lounge and five-times-daily snack buffets. A parking garage with more than 600 spaces will be built to serve the hotel.
Guests who stay on the top four floors can catch a glimpse of the blue Pacific in the distance from their terraces.
Ritz-Carlton envisions its Irvine addition as a “city” hotel, not a resort.
It would compete with the Four Seasons hotel in Newport Beach, not the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point, Orange County’s most upscale resort, a Park Place spokesman said.
Ritz-Carlton Hotels Co. officials have said their research indicated that the Irvine market could support another luxury hotel. Orange County’s hotel occupancy rate was 71.43% from January through March, up 1.2% from the El Nino-drenched winter of 1998, PKF Consulting said.
The market has matured to the point that it is ready to have this kind of facility, a Park Place spokesman said.
