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LEGOLAND(R) California unveils plan for 250-room hotel.
Jan. 19, 2009
CARLSBAD ---- The owners of the LEGOLAND(R) California amusement park will seek
permission Wednesday from the city's Planning Commission to put a 250-room,
Lego-themed hotel on part of their parking lot.
"I think it's something people have asked about for a long time," park
spokeswoman Beth Downing said Friday as she discussed the hotel, which is
proposed to occupy the RV parking lot next to the main entrance.
One of the LEGOLAND amusement parks in Europe already has its own hotel, and
"kids love the themed rooms," Downing added.
LEGOLAND California, which opened in 1999, occupies a roughly 128-acre parcel
south of Cannon Road and north of Palomar Airport Road. Until 2005, the company
that makes the children's plastic Lego building blocks owned it.
The park's new owner ---- British-based Merlin Entertainment Group Inc. ---- has
added a second attraction at the amusement park site. The Sea Life Aquarium,
which requires a separate admission ticket, opened last year.
With the aquarium and the proposed hotel, LEGOLAND is striving to become "more
than a one-day destination for families," Downing said Friday.
The hotel project will require both city and state Coastal Commission approval
because it falls within the state's coastal review zone. Construction is
expected to take two to three years, Downing said.
The proposed hotel won't be the only lodging facility within walking distance of
the park. Two independently operated hotels, including the recently opened
Sheraton Carlsbad resort, already exist just outside the park's gate.
The Sheraton, which will have 350 rooms once all phases of construction are
completed, is part of a wave of new hotels in town. Recent city statistics
indicate that Carlsbad now has 3,634 hotel rooms.
Some tourism industry watchers have recently said that there's already a glut on
the local market, given the recent national economic downturn.
At Carlsbad Tourism Business Improvement District board meeting in December,
several area hoteliers said their occupancy rates for November and December were
likely to be lower than last year, adding that forecasts also weren't likely to
be good for the coming year.
City officials have said the final 2008 hotel tax revenue figures should be
available later this month or early next month.
Initial indications were that November occupancy rates were holding somewhat
steady, but that city hotel tax revenue would be down, one city official said
during the tourism board meeting. That indicates that hotel operators are still
renting rooms, but at lower prices.
The Planning Commission meeting is set to start at 6 p.m. Wednesday at City
Hall, 1200 Carlsbad Village Drive. The commissioners will be asked to approve a
series of things related to the project, including changing the amusement park's
parking requirements.
The requirement is 94.5 spaces per acre of active theme park, while the proposed
standard would be 80.08, a new city staff report indicates. The report notes
that Carlsbad didn't have a parking standard for amusement parks until Legoland
came along and created the 94.5-space standard based on what other communities
had.
However, the report continues, LEGOLAND peak parking figure for 2007 showed that
it could get by with a lower parking rate standard and still meet visitors'
needs.
Plans call for the three-story hotel to include a 14,383-square-foot restaurant,
11,051-square-foot retail space, a 6,364-square-foot bar/lounge, an outdoor pool
and a water play area. It's proposed to be built in two phases, with the first
phase containing 175 hotel rooms.
<http://www.northcountytimes.com/articles/2009/01/18/news/coastal/carlsbad/zc5bec3f29ddd84758825754000604326.txt>
-end of report-
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