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CARLSBAD: LEGOLAND® California Hotel project wins council approval
By BARBARA HENRY - Tuesday, October 27, 2009
(BLOCK LOOK EXTENDS TO ROOMS, EVEN CARPET)
A proposal to build a 254-room, LEGO-themed hotel at the LEGOLAND California
amusement park won the support it needed Tuesday from the Carlsbad City Council.
The state’s Coastal Commission also is expected to soon sign off on the plans,
but when construction will begin is uncertain, project backers said, adding that
it depends on national economic conditions.
“We need to see signs of recovery first,” LEGOLAND general manager Peter
Ronchetti told the City Council.
Once the park’s owners ---- Merlin Entertainments ---- agree to begin the job,
it will take about 18 months of work before the proposed hotel can open its
doors to paying customers, Ronchetti said.
Tucked out of sight between Cannon Road to the north and Palomar Airport Road to
the south, the LEGOLAND California park opened in 1999 and added a separate
aquarium attraction last year. The park’s rides and other attractions are
inspired by creations made from the plastic LEGO building blocks.
The proposed hotel will include a LEGO clock tower and brightly colored LEGO
decorations around its exterior. Plans call for the serpentine-shaped hotel,
which will wrap around a pool area, to be built in two phases, with the first
phase consisting of 152 rooms. The hotel is proposed to go on what’s now the RV
parking lot next to the ticket counters.
The RV lot is seldom used, so the loss of its parking spaces isn’t considered a
big concern, city senior planner Van Lynch told the council.
In fact, LEGOLAND has so much excess parking space that it leases part of its
lower lots to car dealerships for new-car storage.
Council members said they were eager for the place to open. Councilwoman Ann
Kulchin noted that city leaders have expected a LEGO-themed hotel ever since the
park opened a decade ago.
Others said they loved the room designs, particularly the luxury ones with
pirate and castle themes.
“I think this is obviously a very unique hotel,” Councilman Mark Packard said.
Ronchetti said that even the basic rooms will carry a LEGO look, with special
carpeting that has the texture of the bumpy top of LEGO blocks. The wall paper
will feature building plans for LEGO objects, he added.
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/carlsbad/article_99ed55de-d510-5e33-813e-d28153dc0c51.html
-end of report-
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http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/06/25/news/coastal/carlsbad/z83b3b16f6486d1d8882575e10008e1e2.txt
CARLSBAD: Legoland hires nine star builders
Five declared "masters," while four gain associate positions at the amusement
park
BY BARBARA HENRY - bhenry@nctimes.com | Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:51 PM PDT
CARLSBAD ---- A Carlsbad teenager who vowed that he hadn't picked up a little
plastic building block in eight years wowed the judges during a two-day
competition to select new master builders at the Legoland California amusement
park.
Eighteen-year-old Samuel Swiger --- the youngest of the competitors ---- walked
away Thursday afternoon with a $10-an-hour, full-time job as his prize. He was
one of four people selected for entry-level, or "associate" builder, jobs at
Legoland.
"I didn't want to make a normal thing," Swiger said as he told the judges why he
had built a three-dimensional recreation of an Egyptian god during the final two
hours of the competition.
Five other people, including a man from Indiana who has a Web site showcasing
his latest plastic Lego building block creations, won full-time jobs as "master
builders" with a pay that starts at $12 to $15 an hour, Legoland park
spokeswoman Beth Downing said.
The new master builders will create large, specialty pieces for a new Legoland
amusement park that's scheduled to open in Malaysia in 2013. The new associate
builders will copy existing Lego designs and do gluing work, among other things,
Downing said.
The park received about 150 applications for the jobs, and narrowed that to 18
finalists by Thursday morning.
The troubled state of the nation's economy was clearly on some applicants'
minds. Several of the finalists, including a man who had worked on a robotics
project, said they were unemployed and looking for work.
Successful Legoland applicants had to do all the typical job interview stuff,
plus they had to demonstrate their ability to build things with tiny plastic
bricks under pressure. Their final event was a timed, two-hour competition in
front of the judges, the news media, and dozens of Legoland visitors.
After the final whistle sounded, Carlsbad resident Erik Vanderhagen looked a
little relieved.
"I didn't expect this," he said, adding that he had expected a simple job
interview when he filled out his application. "Even if I don't get the job, this
has been a lot of fun."
Vanderhagen, who built a dancing crocodile in the final timed competition,
didn't win a job, but a personal trainer from Seattle who flew down for the
competition did.
"I love building Legos and I thought I had a chance," said Joel Baker of Seattle
as he waited for the final results.
Meanwhile, fellow master builder job winner Mark Larson of Indiana was already
collecting fans. Several Legoland visitors wrote down his Web site address,
saying they wanted to view his other creations.
There are 24 Legoland model builders, and 10 of them work at the Carlsbad park,
Legoland officials said. This is the first competitive hiring of master builders
at the park in several years, Downing said.
"It's just something we do whenever we need builders," she said.
The new master builders are: Joel Baker of Seattle; Brian Heins of Poway; Amanda
Jouan of Chula Vista; Mark Larson of Beverly Shores, Ind.; and Ryan Wood of
Gardena.
The new associate builders are: Dana Bradsema of San Diego; Eric Christie of
Hemet; Bryan Decker of San Diego; and Samuel Swiger of Carlsbad.
--
Congratulations to all!
Bill
(TooMuchDew)
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CARLSBAD, California.
Man Proposes At LEGOLAND(R) California
Feb. 24, 2009
A Fort Collins couple made a romantic memory complete with a diamond ring, a
down-on-one-knee proposal and about 2 million tiny plastic bricks.
Troy Cobb and Lacey Williams were engaged Monday in Miniland Las Vegas at
LEGOLAND as part of a surprise trip to California to celebrate Valentine’s Day
and Williams’ birthday.
Cobb proposed to Williams with the help of a “Lacey Will You Marry Me?” sign
hand-crafted by one of the park’s master model builders and displayed as a part
of “The Strip” LEGO site.
“I wanted to do something special,” Cobb said. “And this idea just popped into
my head one day.”
Unfortunately, Williams walked right past the sign, which was mounted on a mini
replica of Paris’ Eiffel Tower and decorated with two four-inch bride and groom
models of the couple, twice before Cobb got down on one knee.
There, true to the proposal theme, Cobb presented a pink sapphire and diamond
ring - in a LEGO box.
“At first she was just stunned,” Cobb said. “But then she definitely said,
‘Yes’.”
It took a month of advanced planned and prep work to get the sign completed and
mounted correctly, Cobb said. In fear that LEGOLAND would not finish the sign in
time, Cobb even constructed and shipped his own hand-crafted LEGO sign to the
park, but the professional sign was ultimately used.
The sign, which used red lettering on a white background, hung on “The Strip” of
Miniland Las Vegas, an architectural landmark built with 2 million plastic
bricks and 16,000 hours of creative artistry, according to a LEGOLAND news
release.
Cobb and Lacey, who are both 28, have known each other since high school and
share a love for LEGOS.
Cobb is the greenhouse supervisor at Fort Collins Nursery, and Williams is a
student at CSU.
The newly engaged couple plan to top their wedding cake with miniature LEGO
figures of themselves.
Coloradoan.com
If you are interested about rings looking like LEGO.
Rings
-end of report-
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CARLSBAD: LEGOLAND(R) Inauguration model still attracting crowds.
By Renee Ramsey - For the North County Times. Jan. 31, 2009
CARLSBAD - Ten days after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, crowds
still were lining up to see a facsimile fashioned from thousands of miniature
plastic bricks at LEGOLAND California.
“I knew it was going to be a big deal, because of the importance of the
inauguration,” said LEGOLAND Master model designer Gary McIntire. “I didn’t
think it was going to explode quite the way it did.”
At the Carlsbad theme park Thursday, McIntire signed autographs for
camera-wielding visitors at the 7-foot-tall fake Capitol building and described
his first Facebook message of the day. “It said, ‘Are you Gary the LEGO guy from
CNN?’” he said.
Kristi Klein, a toy model designer who worked with McIntire on the LEGObama
set, said she received 1,000 hits on her blog on one recent day versus a normal
10 or 12.
“It’s amazing,” Klein said, adding that some wanted tips on how to make their
own LEGO Obama.
Julie Estrada, one of three members of the LEGOLAND public relations team that
came up with the idea to create the toy inauguration, still was fielding news
media calls this week, she said. A New Zealand radio station wants an interview
in February.
“I don’t think any of us expected the international attention,” Estrada said.
The news coverage that has spread to 48 states and dozens of countries since the
faux inauguration Jan. 15 and real one Jan. 20, she said.
McIntire and Klein have adjusted the inauguration’s 4-inch-tall toy figures in
the park’s Miniland USA section to reflect clothing worn for the real event in
Washington, D.C. The original outfits had been based on guesswork, they said,
adding that the president’s dark suit and red tie proved a good guess.
Michelle Obama’s red dress now is made of yellow bricks. First daughter Sasha’s
outfit now is pink with an orange-brick scarf. An ornate letter “B” borrowed
from a Harry Potter Lego set was added to the swearing-in Bible.
Klein attached tiny gray blocks to “Aretha Franklin’s head” to mimic the hat
with a big bow that the legendary singer wore to the inaugural.
“Aretha was pretty challenging,” Klein said about creating one of the more buxom
figures on the fake Capitol steps. “She’s sort of a nonstandard Miniland shape.”
For McIntire, “the most challenging was trying to recreate Michelle Obama,” he
said. “Short girl hair on Miniland people is hard to do. Curly hair, no problem.
Pony tails, no problem. But shoulder-length female hair is the most difficult.”
Finding the Oprah figure on the set has become a Where’s Waldo?-style pastime
for many visitors, McIntire said.
“She’s up on the left side of the balcony,” he added.
Klein said she had the most fun creating the uniformed Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“It was fun to get each one right, and on such a small scale,” she said.
Estrada said she’s having fun trying to keep a straight face at the critical
reviews that began appearing on Web sites this week.
“One blog said they didn’t have Dick Cheney in a wheelchair, and this fellow
wasn’t bald enough. I said, ‘Seriously?,‘” Estrada said, smiling.
In addition to building 500 new figures for the elaborate set, hundreds of
other figures are on loan from other areas of Miniland USA. The borrowed cast
includes Las Vegas tourists, hundreds more children than appeared at the actual
event and even a banana-selling vendor.
Estrada found a way around a failure to add a minifigure of House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi to the set.
“We’ve had people ask, ‘Is that Pelosi?,’ and we’ve said, ‘Sure,‘” Estrada said.
“Minilanders don’t have faces, so they can be anyone.”
LEGOLAND Obama inauguration will remain on display through Memorial Day.
Monday, May 25, 2009
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/01/31/news/coastal/carlsbad/z7ac5dd79c5d0b3b98825754e0073f5eb.txt
-end of report-
If LEGO is reading this. Just a small thought, to management at LEGO Group &
LEGOLAND California invite President Obama, and his family a private visit to
LEGOLAND California. If he plans to visit California before Memorial day. If
he is not able to visit. It would a nice gesture and gift to send the small
model of the Obama’s miniland figures to the White House. Think of it... LEGO
in the White House and in the future in the Presidential Library.
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