Orange County Register
05/25/15

Rooms with a Surf City View: Paséa Hotel & Spa Debuts Thursday
By Hannah Madans

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/rooms-717182-hotel-pasea.html

Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, the Paséa Hotel & Spa will have a soft opening Thursday, ahead of its grand opening June 10.

The property, which sits across PCH from the iconic Huntington Beach Pier, boasts 250 guestrooms, ocean views, a Bali-inspired spa, 11 meeting rooms, 34,000 square feet of ocean front event space, Tanner’s restaurant and a rooftop bar.

Rooms were available for the holiday weekend, according to a search at Hotels.com, which posted rates from $339 per night up to $4,900 nightly for a penthouse suite.

Pacific Hospitality Group and R.D. Olson Development are the developers for the project. PHG will serve as the management company for the property and R.D Olson Construction is the general contractor for the project.

Scott Blakeslee, general manager of the hotel, said his goal when joining the project last summer was to offer guests a unique experience.

“It’s a departure from the traditional coastal properties you see,” Blakeslee previously told the Register. “It has a clean, contemporary look but carries warmth and artistry.”

“We took something raw and fun and tied it into this luxury environment,” Blakeslee added.

The Pasea is just one addition to Orange County’s booming hotel market.

Three new hotels with a total of 606 rooms opened last year; 11 other hotels, with a total of 2,365 rooms were under construction.

By the end of 2015, planning was underway for 25 more hotels with 4,200 rooms, according to Alan Reay, president of Irvine’s Atlas Hospitality Group, a hotel brokerage firm.

And perhaps in anticipation of the Pasea’s opening, the Waterfront Beach Resort, a Hilton property just across the street, finished a $140 million financing deal to add a suites-only tower.

Irvine-based Robert Mayer Corp. owns the 290-room resort. The changes will include a nine-story, 152 room all-suites resort tower, a restaurant, ocean-view lounge, pool deck and event lawn on an adjacent 3.5-acre parcel south of the existing hotel.