The hospitality company behind the ambitious transformation of San Diego’s Lafayette Hotel cleared a major hurdle Tuesday in its quest to build a boutique hotel and wellness center in Little Italy.
Just five months ago, the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority ruled that the planned density of the 60-room hotel, along with offices, a wellness center and restaurant, posed too great a risk for diners and guests should there be a plane crash. San Diego-based CH Projects wants to build the hotel complex at the corner of Kettner Boulevard and West Juniper Street, which according to the airport, lies in a safety zone that falls directly under the airport’s flight arrival path.
The San Diego City Council, however, has the power to override the airport’s determination, and it did just that on Tuesday, clearing the way for a project CH is calling Dreamboat. A second vote of the council — likely in September — is required before CH can move ahead with designing what would be the company’s first ground-up hotel.
San Diego Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, who also sits on the Airport Authority board, hastened to point out that the airport did nothing wrong in ruling against the hotel project.
“All of the surrounding uses of this property are already above the (density) limits so the airport did what it was supposed to do, but as the City Council we are able to make different findings, and because we have overruled this process many other times for literally surrounding parcels, it’s consistent with the use,” she said.
Councilmember Joe La Cava, while expressing some reservations, still supported the project moving forward.
“I’m not sure it’s wise for us to say we’ve put everybody else in harm’s way so let’s go ahead and throw one more in, but given Councilmember Von Wilpert’s comment, sitting on the Airport Authority, I will be voting in support of this,” he said.
Land use consultant Marcela Escobar, who has been advising CH Projects, pointed out, as did others, that Dreamboat would be a “doughnut hole” in the immediate area, surrounded by more intense land uses. Under the airport’s safety guidelines, only 32 rooms would have been allowed in the proposed hotel.
In anticipation of developing a new hotel, an LLC formed by CH Projects co-founder Arsalun Tafazoli called Inside Voice acquired six properties last year on Kettner, Juniper and India at the northern end of Little Italy at a cost of $13 million, according to the commercial real estate firm CoStar. Among them are a couple of single-family homes and smaller commercial buildings.
While CH Projects is known more for its portfolio of such high-profile restaurants and bars as Born & Raised, Seneca Trattoria and Ironside Fish & Oyster, it has become increasingly captivated by the hotel industry.
In addition to its $31 million makeover of the nearly 80-year-old Lafayette on El Cajon Boulevard, CH is in the midst of redeveloping yet another hotel — the 31-room La Avenida Inn in Coronado that will open in October in its new incarnation as the Baby Grand hotel.
If all goes well with future approvals and securing needed permits, construction of the Little Italy project could start, at the very earliest, by the middle of next year, Tafazoli said.
“I just have a whole lot of relief and gratitude for the council allowing us the opportunity to bring the dream to fruition,” Tafazoli said following the vote.
Because Dreamboat has yet to be designed, there are not a lot of details beyond the individual uses: a hotel with a 6,700-square-foot wellness center; two restaurants totaling 6,800 square feet, a rooftop garden, and underground parking, all on a 0.57-acre site. Tafazoli said earlier this year that CH intends to make the Little Italy site its corporate headquarters.
The Dreamboat development is not the first time Tafazoli has had to overcome objections from the Airport Authority over a Little Italy project. Eight years ago, the airport’s land use rules threatened to kill plans to transform the former Nelson Photo into what is now Born & Raised because officials concluded that occupancy of the 8,000-square-foot space could only be 84 diners, compared with the more than 130 that were planned.
