San Diego port development plan

from San Diego Business Journal news brief 1/14/2008:

Port OKs New Cruise Terminal, Two Hotels on the Embarcadero
By MIKE ALLEN - 1/14/2008

"It’s taken about a decade, but the first steps in a plan to renovate San Diego’s downtown waterfront are happening.

Last week, the San Diego Unified Port District approved two projects at the epicenter of the city’s Embarcadero: a dual hotel complex at Lane Field estimated to cost $400 million, and a cruise ship terminal at the Broadway Pier that has increased to more than $23 million.

The first project entails building two hotels with a combined 800 rooms and about 80,000 square feet of retail, restaurants and public parking on 5.7 acres located at Harbor Drive between B Street and Broadway.

The larger hotel, operated by the InterContinental Hotels Group, would stand 22 stories, contain 525 rooms and about 50,000 square feet of restaurants and retail uses. The second hotel, operated by Woodfin Suite Hotels LLC, would stand 13 stories high, have 275 rooms, and about 30,000 square feet of restaurants and retail space.

The complex also contains a 1,330-car underground parking garage, plus open spaces and terraces accessible through outside elevators that are part of both hotels." ...

"The projects approved last week are part of a larger plan to revitalize the downtown waterfront and make it a more appealing place for people to visit.

That plan, called the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan, was adopted in 1997 by five agencies: the port; the city of San Diego; Centre City Development Corp., the city’s downtown redevelopment agency; the county of San Diego; and the U.S. Navy." ...

"The development team on the Lane Field project is made up of Hardage Suite Hotels LLC, Lankford & Associates Inc., Phelps Development Co. of Greeley, Colo., and C.W. Clark Inc. The announced construction cost is about $400 million. The project is expected to create 2,000 hotel jobs and 500 temporary construction jobs, and the estimated hotel taxes generated from the hotels in the first year is $5.4 million, developers say." ...

"Port commissioners also unanimously approved a development permit for a new cruise ship terminal at the Broadway Pier. The terminal was initially supposed to serve only a few years, and accommodate the increasing number of cruise ships stopping here while work on a more elaborate cruise ship terminal at the B Street Pier got under way this year." ...

for the complete story (including all the fights) see:
http://sdbj.com/enews_article.asp?aID=67719965.6756908.15740
66.9403769.4065116.665&aID2=121073&lid=30&sid=&cID=Z