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Old Posted Jul 19, 2007, 2:57 PM
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Hotel in Ballpark Village alarms housing advocates
By Jeanette Steele
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

July 19, 2007


DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO – The biggest hotel in San Diego County is being proposed for one of the city's most-discussed downtown properties: Ballpark Village, where people expected to see swanky condominiums, offices, shops and 35,000 square feet of affordable housing next to Petco Park.

Drawings of a $1 billion, 1,650-room Marriott convention hotel are being circulated by JMI Realty, the property development company of Padres Chairman John Moores.

The 500-foot-tall, twin-tower hotel already has attracted critics. Not only had JMI earlier envisioned condominiums, it signed a 2005 agreement with a labor and affordable-housing coalition saying there was “no intention” of putting a hotel there.

Some coalition members are crying foul. They say the roughly 1,900 hotel positions created will be “poverty jobs” that will create more names for the city's affordable-housing lists. The agreement with JMI said most Ballpark Village employees would earn $10 an hour plus benefits, or more, but it's unclear whether that requirement would affect the hotel, they said.

“We obviously will oppose this hotel as vigorously as possible unless they pay a living wage,” said Richard Lawrence, co-chairman of the San Diego Affordable Housing Coalition.

Others, including city officials, are wondering what the change means for the rest of the 7-acre Ballpark Village site and what's ahead for the affordable housing promised there.

Controversial project
Ballpark Village became controversial in late 2005 after a city-brokered deal requiring JMI and its partner Lennar to include low-income housing in the project was on the verge of approval by the San Diego City Council. The developers and the labor-affordable housing coalition suddenly came forward with an alternate scenario that called for more affordable housing – but it would be elsewhere in East Village.


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The compromise, after much rancor, was to put 35,000 square feet of affordable units at Ballpark Village as well as build some off-site housing. The off-site housing is now under construction.

JMI Realty President John Kratzer says his company hadn't planned a hotel until Marriott approached with a deal worth pursuing. The spirit of the agreement with the labor coalition, Kratzer said, was that if JMI changed its mind about a hotel, the coalition was free to oppose it.

“If the city doesn't want the hotel, we won't build it,” Kratzer said this week. “But it seems to me if there was an opportunity to generate $13 million or $14 million in (hotel taxes) for the city, that would be something they are interested in.”

He also said JMI is not backing away from the on-site affordable housing requirement. It will be built elsewhere on the 7 acres, as was always expected, Kratzer said.

Marriott International, based in Washington, D.C., has at least 15 properties in San Diego, including two hotels being built or proposed in downtown separate from Ballpark Village. It declined to comment on the latest project.

Rooms are welcomed
The Marriott project, which includes 60 condominiums, tops the list of at least five large hotels in the downtown pipeline. Hospitality industry officials say San Diego's booming convention business can use the beds, and the new supply might push down room rates in what has become an extremely expensive market.

“We typically are universally supportive of advancing the room inventory,” said Steve Johnson, San Diego Convention Center vice president. “It adds flexibility for our sales team to book business.”

Namara Mercer of the San Diego County Hotel-Motel Association said, “When you have an increase in room inventory, the average daily room rates may go down. But the (hotel tax) to the city will go up.”

It is also a possible signpost of the drooping housing scene downtown. Other projects once planned to be condominiums have stalled or the sites are up for sale.

With 1,650 rooms, the proposed Marriott, once completed, would be the county's largest hotel by about 25 units. The Manchester Grand Hyatt on Harbor Drive has 1,625 rooms.

Marriott calls its proposal a “convention hotel,” with 175,000 square feet of meeting space. A Hilton being built on port land across Harbor Drive follows the same concept, with 1,200 rooms and 165,000 square feet of convention space.

Johnson said the meeting space in these hotels is too small to compete with the convention center and won't derail its argument for expansion. Center officials have said the convention complex, which has 1.1 million square feet of meeting space, runs at capacity and needs more room.

Information sought
The Marriott proposal has a long way to go before heads could hit pillows.

The Centre City Development Corp., the city's downtown redevelopment agency, last week asked JMI for more information about how the hotel would affect development on the rest of the site. The developer also is asking for at least six points of departure from the site's master plan, which will require CCDC approval.

The Ballpark Village plan calls for 300,000 square feet of office space, 115,000 square feet of retail or commercial space and 35,000 square feet of affordable housing on the site. It allows the developer to decide where to put the affordable housing and whether to build condominiums or hotels. Kratzer said his company intends to meet those guidelines.

CCDC Chairman Fred Maas said he is open to considering the hotel, but that the affordable-housing commitment must be honored.

The Center on Policy Initiatives, a pro-labor think tank that was part of the Ballpark Village coalition, also is worried about commitments.

“We made a deal with them, and now they want to redo this deal,” research director Murtaza Baxamusa said.
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