Dave McKibben of the Los Angeles Times wrote a valuable article on Tuesday about the market for luxury hotels in the Anaheim Resort District, focusing on a proposed residential development within the resort district: the site of a closed Toys 'R' Us on Harbor between Orangewood and Chapman.
McKibben quotes Derek Baak, the developer of the project:
"If the city is waiting for a luxury hotel-condo project on that site, who knows how long the land will sit there vacant?" he said. "You just can't build a hotel now without some kind of subsidy." With more condos added in his new plan, "the condos subsidize the hotel."
Now, to listen to the Disney/SOAR people opposing this project, as well as Parc Anaheim and SunCal's Platinum Pointe, you'd think the resort district was dying for more hotels -- not only that, but the financial future of Anaheim depends upon building a hotel on the SunCal-optioned property. See for yourself the comments made by Disney/SOAR folks at the Feb. 13 and April 24 Anaheim Council meetings. [Full disclosure: I am a member of the SunCal consulting team for Platinum Pointe]
But above, you have someone actually trying build a hotel/condo project, and he's having to scale back the hotel portion of the project to make it pencil out. Apparently his financials haven't been heeding the Disney/SOAR line.
Although Disney is now officially opposed to this Harbor Boulevard project, less than 10 months than a year ago Disney supported it. At the August 22, 2006 Anaheim Council hearing, a Disney spokesman told the council:
"The developments of which the speaker before me spoke of is one as an example where you have a quality resort component and on top you have a residential component. Our position has traditionally been against residential developments within the resort district but we need to look at each development and base it on its merits. And within the plan and the overlays that Staff's presenting, we think presents a quality product that we could support especially in the outlining areas of the resort district."
Oh well -- what's consistency matter when you have a resort district to control!
