Four Hotels in Waterfront Mixed-Use Plan

No sooner does one developer announce what is expected to be the “last luxury hotel on the Pacific Ocean in California” than another entrepreneur comes along with just one more.

Robert Mayer of the Robert Mayer Corp., Newport Beach, will have no fewer than four hotels in The Waterfront, a $345-million, 50-acre, mixed-use project fronting the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway between Huntington Street and Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach.

A conditional use permit was scheduled to be filed with the city Friday for the project being developed by Mayer in cooperation with the city’s redevelopment agency as part of the Main-Pier Redevelopment project.

Hotel Construction

The first hotel in the 20.7-acre, six-phase commercial segment of the project will be valued at $48 million and will consist of two buildings at the northeast corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Huntington Street.

Construction is scheduled to begin in the last quarter of this year on the 467-room hotel, with the west building scheduled for completion in 1989 and the east building in 1991.

The commercial segment will include a health and tennis resort, retail plaza with restaurants and upscale shopping and the three additional hotels.

One will be a 400-room conference hotel, another an all-suite hotel, and the third will be a 400-room luxury resort hotel at the northwest corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Beach Boulevard. The final hotel is targeted for completion in 1995, Mayer said.

“Four hotels sound like a lot, but the total number of rooms--about 1,500--is less than the total room count in two of the big hotels that have been built in Irvine and Anaheim in recent years,” Mayer said. “The hotels will be the only ones right on the surf between Laguna Beach and Redondo Beach.”

The gate-guarded residential component of the project will feature about 875 water-oriented multifamily units in four phases scheduled for completion in 1991 through 1994.

“There will be for-sale and rental units, built on islands surrounded by lagoons,” he said. “Under the requirements of the (California) Coastal Commission, 20% of the units are required to be affordable, but this requirement could be satisfied by building affordable units elsewhere in Huntington Beach,” he said.

The site is currently occupied by the Huntington Beach Inn, the 239-unit Driftwood Mobile Home Park and a nine-hole golf course. The city adopted an ordinance in 1983 to deal with the conversion of mobile-home parks in the downtown redevelopment area.

“We’re aware of the sensitive issues inherent in the conversion procedure, and will comply with all provisions of local, state and federal laws throughout the conversion of the property and the relocation of the mobile-home park tenants,” Mayer said, adding that he has controlled the site since 1978. He is negotiating with the city for a long-term lease.

Mayer has been a developer since 1955. Before founding the Robert Mayer Corp., he was chairman of the Mayer Group, one of the Southland’s largest residential developers, responsible for more than 25,000 apartments.

The successor firm, Coastfed Properties, Beverly Hills, is headed by Mayer’s former associate, Alan I. Casden, and ranked first in The Times’ ranking of Southland residential developers published earlier this year.