San Francisco To Develop W, Four Seasons Hotels
<B> San Francisco To Develop W, Four Seasons Hotels</B>
By Judy Jacobs
After nearly a decade of dormant hotel construction, San Francisco once again will see new hotels arise, this time in the city's South of Market area bordering the financial district. These new hotels will include one of Starwood Hotels & Resorts' first W properties and a Four Seasons hotel, creating a total of more than 700 new rooms to meet growing demand.
The burgeoning neighborhood where the two properties will be located--surrounding the Moscone Center and stretching toward Silicon Gulch, the city's high tech enclave--is becoming a sort of Downtown South, with new office high rises, restaurants, shops and museums. The hotels will cater to a growing number of business travelers to the area, as well as those attending conventions at Moscone Center.
The new South of Market hotels may help to alleviate San Francisco's rapidly rising hotel rates, which increased from an average daily rate of $103.95 in 1995 to $140.63 last year, according to PKF Consulting. Along with rates, occupancies are also increasing steadily, from 73.8 percent in 1995 to 80 percent last year.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts is building the W San Francisco, one of the initial properties in its new business-oriented hotel group, at Third and Howard Streets, across from the Moscone Center. The 418-room hotel will be geared to business travelers, and each room will include a 27-inch television with high-speed Internet access, dual-line cordless phones with speakers and conference capabilities and business equipment as needed. It will also have a health club, a business center and seven meeting rooms totaling more than 9,500 square feet. The W San Francisco is scheduled to open next spring.
The other major South of Market project, The Four Seasons Hotel and Tower, will be a mixed-use development that includes a 285-room Four Seasons hotel, 140 luxury residential condominiums and a 100,000-sq.-ft. sports club. It is being developed at a cost of $350 million on the south side of Market Street between Third and Fourth Streets, and is scheduled to open in late 2000.
Complementing the hotel additions are several other developments in entertainment and meeting facilities that will enhance the neighborhood even further.
In April, Millenium Partners, developers of the Four Seasons Hotel and Tower, will open Metreon--the first of a series of Sony entertainment centers being created around the world--on a site next to Yerba Buena Gardens, home of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The Metreon complex will include 15 large-screen theaters with a total of 4,500 seats and a 600-seat, three-dimensional IMAX theater.
The Metreon also will contain a number of Sony virtual reality attractions and various retail outlets, including the Discover Channel Destination, Microsoft and Sony Style stores. Among the restaurants in the centers will be the Premier Cafe, where diners can order movie tickets and watch previews while enjoying their meals.
In the year 2000, the Mexican Museum will relocate from Fort Mason Center into a new building to be constructed across from Yerba Buena Gardens, and the Jewish Museum of San Francisco will expand into its new home in the adjacent historic Jessie Street Substation building.
Professional baseball also will be more accessible to business travelers after April 2000, when the San Francisco Giants' $300 million new stadium, Pacific Bell Park, opens on a site just seven blocks south of Moscone Center in an old industrial area known as China Basin.
Of even greater consequence for business travelers, the Moscone Convention Center plans to build Moscone West. This major expansion will add 300,000 square feet of meeting and exhibition space to the existing 600,000 square feet. The project is expected to be completed in 2003, bringing even more business to the Downtown South neighborhood.