Restoration Of Gaslamp Quarter Brightens Up San Diego
<B>Restoration Of Gaslamp Quarter Brightens Up San Diego</B>
By Judy Jacobs
After years of restoration efforts, the opening of three new hotels, along with the upcoming new ballpark and convention center expansion, San Diego's historic Gaslamp Quarter finally has come into its own. And because of its location in the heart of downtown, it is an area business travelers should consider for their next trip to San Diego.
"The Gaslamp development brings more people and therefore more things to the area. It has created a heartbeat for the city. Developers are creating lots of new housing downtown, and because of that there's a new level of facilities and services," said Tom Pucci, director of sales for the new San Diego Hilton Gaslamp Quarter.
The 16.5-block Gaslamp Quarter has scores of restaurants, nightclubs and shops; is listed on the National Register of Historic Places; and is one of the city's 18 business improvement districts. The businesses located in the neighborhood are taxed and a portion of the fees--35 percent--is given back to the district to be used by the Gaslamp Quarter Association. Part of the district's restoration success can be credited to the Centre City Development Corp., San Diego's redevelopment agency.
"The Gaslamp was established as a redevelopment project in 1982, with the objective of rehabilitating as many buildings as possible and giving them new life," said Donna Alm, vice president of marketing and communications of Centre City. "There are about 90 buildings and we've done a majority of them. We also put in brick sidewalks, sidewalk furniture and lighting."
The only thing missing, until recently, was a choice of chain hotels, but that has been remedied with the opening of the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel San Diego Downtown/Gaslamp and the San Diego Hilton Gaslamp Quarter, which together offer nearly 500 rooms.
The Courtyard opened in October in the 71-year old San Diego Trust and Savings Bank Building after a $27 million rehabilitation and reconstruction project. Although currently a hotel, the building retains the ambience of the bank it once was. "We kept 98 percent of the historic element in the public areas," said David Bilbe, the hotel's general manager. "The entire lobby looks the same as it did when it was a bank. The teller windows have been converted into the front desk area, for example." Although the lobby remains much the same, the office tower above it was gutted and converted into guest rooms. The only original elements remaining are the hallways and the office doors. The lower level, however, was converted into meeting rooms, one of which is in the former vault, where attendees sit among the safe deposit boxes.
Because of its location between the business district and the Gaslamp and close to the convention center, the hotel is going after the corporate market, targeting FIT business travelers, as well as the meetings market. "We do more corporate meetings than most Courtyards, because people want to meet in an old bank," Bilbe said. This seems to be particularly true of current banks which, along with technology companies, supply most of the meetings at the Courtyard. During the hotel's first months of operations, in-house corporate meetings made up 20 percent of its market mix and attendees at citywide conventions another 25 percent, Bilbe added.
The second new hotel, the San Diego Hilton Gaslamp Quarter, opened May 22. Because of its location across from the convention center, the hotel is catering to citywide conventions, as well as in-house corporate meetings. Pucci expects that FIT business travelers will make up about one-quarter of the business. What sets the hotel apart, he said, is its size. "We're smaller. Hotels that offer some of the facilities we do are large. We don't treat the hotel as a factory. We treat it as a small hotel," Pucci said.
The Hilton's business traveler-friendly facilities include large desks and two-line phones with modems and high-speed Internet access in the guest rooms, as well as two executive floors. There is 6,000 square feet of indoor meeting space and 5,000 square feet of outdoor function space. Although it just opened in May, the 252-room hotel already has plans to expand by adding another 30 guest rooms next year. The Hilton is part of the Bridgeworks project that incorporates offices and shops. "We decided to take some of the space from the shops and turn it into more guest rooms," Pucci said.
Meanwhile, a major San Diego infrastructure development will further solidify the Gaslamp's position as a prime place to stay. Expansion of the San Diego Convention Center finally is underway, after having been tied up because of legal opposition from Libertarian tax protesters. The expansion will double the size of the existing facility and attract new and larger meetings to the neighborhood. The project is scheduled for completion in September 2001.