Finally breaking ground on Embassy Suites

The $67-million hotel project, which was more than 10 years in the making, is slated to open in 2007.DOWNTOWN GLENDALE -- Well-groomed councilmen in business attire, city staffers, bankers and real estate developers donned hard hats and wielded shovels Friday for the official groundbreaking of the $67-million, 12-story Embassy Suites hotel project.

The hotel, which will incorporate a stepped concrete, curved glass-and-steel design and feature a 12-story central atrium, is expected to be completed by the end of 2007, project manager Michael Lee said.

“Next week, we will bring in drilling rigs to set the pylons around the perimeter that will provide the shoring of the building,” Lee said, standing at the corner of the dirt lot on the corner of North Central Avenue and Burchett Street that will serve as the home of the future hotel. “This is going to be one of the last Embassy Suites with an atrium, as the company is developing a new prototype for the hotels. So this will be something to be looked back on.”

The hotel, which will feature an indoor fish pond and water sculptures in its tropical-motif atrium, 272 all-suite rooms and 10,000 square feet of rentable meeting and banquet space, was designed by Owen Design Group of Irvine. The project’s striking design features earned Owen and developer Kam Sang Co. of Arcadia a Development of the Year award from the Hilton Hotels Corp., which owns the Embassy Suites brand, Lee said.

The groundbreaking for the new hotel came at the end of a long and arduous process, Kam Sang President Ronnie Lam said.

“I am sure many of you, like me, have been waiting for this day to become a reality,” Lam told a crowd of dignitaries gathered in the dirt lot for the project’s official kickoff.

Due to the narrow size of the lot, the company had to secure permission from neighboring property owners to encroach onto their land for the complex underground shoring structure needed to construct the tower, he said.

“Without our neighbors -- Conrads, Maguire Properties and California Credit Union -- without their granting of easements we would not be able to build this project,” Lam said.

While acknowledging that the approval process for the project was a long one, Mayor Pro Tem Ara Najarian said the final result will be well worth the wait.

“This has been at least five years in the making,” Najarian said. “The size of the lot was not the largest, and our rigorous code requirements made approval difficult. But everybody traveling east and west on the 134 Freeway will be treated to this beautiful building, it will truly be a gateway project for the city of Glendale, and will bring more than $1 million a year in tax revenue and 150 jobs to the city.”

Kam Sang endured a five-year approval process, but talk about bringing a new hotel to that site began 10 years ago, City Manager Jim Starbird said.

“Frankly we have been in competition with our neighboring cities for hotel space, and this is the first major hotel project to come to the tri-cities area [in the last five years,]” Starbird said.

The project will be an excellent addition to the Hilton in providing quality accommodations for visitors to Glendale, Councilman Dave Weaver said.

“We have thousands of new employees from Disney coming to town in the next few years,” Weaver said, referring to the Disney Grand Central Creative Campus being built off of San Fernando Road in the northwest of the city. “This will be an excellent alternative for businessmen and families staying in the city.”

QUESTION

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* FRED ORTEGA covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at fred.ortega@latimes.com.