Development Door Is Open to Opportunity

Opportunity is knocking at the city’s door, and officials are opening it. Wide.

Five hotel chains are proposing a total of more than 2,000 new rooms--all on Garden Grove’s stretch of Harbor Boulevard from Chapman Avenue north to Orangewood Avenue and the planned expansion at Disneyland.

The City Council on Monday will vote whether to spend about $13 million to bring three hotels with a total of 700 rooms to the Yucca/Sage neighborhood. The hotels, including a Hilton Inn and Hampton Inn, would replace about a dozen run-down apartment buildings and three low-rent motels.

The city’s redevelopment agency would spend the $13 million to buy the property and to relocate hundreds of residents in the neighborhood, City Manager George Tindall said.

Two other hotels also have been proposed for a parcel at Harbor Boulevard and Chapman Avenue, where the city recently bought out the Oasis Mobile Home Park.

An agreement for the proposed E-Street project at the site expired last week after developers failed to find adequate retail and entertainment tenants, Tindall said.

A 120-day negotiating agreement with OHI Limited for the two hotels, which could bring about 1,500 rooms to the boulevard, is also expected to be approved Monday by the council.

Tindall said the 120-day agreement will allow the developer time to determine whether it is “economically feasible” to bring such a massive project to the area.

Tindall added that if OHI Limited decides not to proceed with such a project, the city has other developers interested in the site.

“Our biggest opportunity for economic growth and development is on Harbor Boulevard,” Tindall said. “Everything can’t be in Anaheim.”

The meeting between the Agency for Community Development and the city will be held at 7 p.m. in the Community Meeting Center, 11300 Stanford Ave.

Information: (714) 741-5040.