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Plans to redevelop Lane Field, the former home of the Pacific Coast League Padres, into a mid-scale 400-room hotel tower and public park, were given the go-ahead Tuesday by San Diego Port Commissioners.
The board granted an option to a development team to build a 14-story structure housing two different hotels — a 250-room Homewood Suites and a 150-room Hilton Garden Inn. The $110 million project, which also calls for a nearly two-acre park and plaza along Harbor Drive, is a downscale version of what was once envisioned as a luxury InterContinental Hotel tower.
The economic downturn, which made financing impossible to obtain, coupled with the added park requirement, forced the developers to rethink the project design, said Jerry Trammer, project executive for Lane Field. Still planned, however, is a second phase that calls for a 400-room InterContinental on the southern portion of the site, which Trammer hopes could be financed once the economy fully rebounds.
The developers of the hotel project include San Diego-based Lankford & Associates, Hardage Suite Hotels and C.W. Clark.
The San Diego Unified Port District, which wouldn’t start getting rent payments until at least 2017, could expect annual revenues of $2 million to $3.9 million during the later years of the agreement. The project, which still requires approval from the California Coastal Commission, could be completed by late 2014, Trammer said.
The developers would also be responsible for creating a new park that would include landscaped areas, a food pavilion, public restrooms and a special homage to the Padres’ former minor league team that used Lane Field between 1936 and 1957.
“One idea is to celebrate the original baseball stadium by having a replica of home plate in the same location where it once was and to also replicate the base pads and the pitcher’s mound,” said Trammer. “And the foul line would shown with in-ground lighting.”
The next step, said Trammer, is to design the hotel and park site, with a goal of starting construction in early 2013.
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