The Daily Transcript
08/19/16

Developers Bringing Trio of Branded Hotels to Liberty Station
By Thor Kamban Biberman

Three more branded hotels, totaling 650 rooms, will soon be developed across the ship channel from the main part of Liberty Station.

The hotels will consist of a 181-room Hampton Inn & Suites, a 222-room Marriott Town Place, and a 247-room Embassy Suites.

The hotels, which are located at 2200 Lee Court, are being co-developed by the Corky McMillin Cos. and InterMountain Management of Monroe, La.

Seattle-based Degen & Degen Architecture and Interior Design is designing the project. Vancouver-based Ledcor is the general contractor for the three-hotel complex.

Plans originally called for a one 600-room hotel at the location. The Nickelodeon cable channel had put forth a brightly colored hotel in one proposal. That plan was abandoned in 2009 in the face of both the recession and opposition to the design.

As was the case with Lane Field North, the developers decided to go with multiple brands. In this case, however, the hotels aren’t physically attached. They only will share a 3,800-square-foot restaurant space.

Joe Haeussler, McMillin executive vice president, said these hotels will be top of the line in their respective categories.

“All of these will be custom-build developments that will push the end of the envelope,” he said.

Haeussler said construction should start on the Hampton Inn & Suites within the next 30 days, with completion slated for the fall of next year. According to The CoStar Group, the rooms will average 400 square feet.

Alan Reay, president of the Atlas Hospitality Group, said he expects all three of the branded hotels to fare very well.

“The hotels are not only in a great location, the Hampton Inn is Hilton’s most successful brand,” he said.

Work on the Marriott Town Place is expected to begin within the next 45 to 60 days, with completion tentatively slated for late next year. The rooms will be closer to 600 square feet, CoStar said.

Work on the Embassy Suites could also get under way this fall, but Reay said that hotel is at an earlier stage of the process. He said grading for the Embassy Suites could begin by the end of the year with completion expected by early 2018. The rooms are expected to be in the 600-square-foot range, according to CoStar.

Liberty Station is currently home to two hotels — a Marriott Courtyard and a Homewood Suites — which have a total of 350 rooms.

“The Homewood Suites and Courtyard here are two of their top performers in the country,” McMillin’s Haeussler said. “They are close to the airport, naval installations, and the tourist core of the city.”

Another Liberty Station hotel is in the planning stages, called the Barracks. When all four are built out, the area will have a total of 1,090 hotel rooms by the end of 2018.

McMillin isn’t known for developing hotels, but its partner in the current lodging venture, InterMountain, has a large portfolio of hotels from coast to coast.

While this will be its first hotel in San Diego County, InterMountain has the Hilton Garden Inn in Fontana, a Homewood Suites in Palm Desert, and a hotel called The Element in Palmdale that is slated to open sometime next year.

Degen & Degen Architecture has worked in San Diego before, having designed the Marriott Courtyard in the Gaslamp District.

General contractor Ledcor has built many projects in San Diego throughout the years. These projects include the Broadway Lofts in downtown; the 225,000-square-foot Spectrum Technology campus for Northrop Grumman in Kearny Mesa; and Icon, a 327-unit, four-building residential and retail development near Petco Park.