5 Big Stories
Top o’ the pops this year was every one of the 200,000 new square feet at Anaheim Convention Center and attendant growth in area hotel activity. The largest West Coast facility for confabs and conventions is now 25% bigger, topping 1 million square feet. It can overlap shows, offer dual outdoor spaces, sports a new parking structure, and gets the next seam-bursting NAMM show in January.
Then Wincome Group within a week of ACC’s September expansion opening broke ground on Westin Anaheim Resort. It has another area hotel in the works, as does Disney, and so do a dozen or so others—from new builds to redos to just sprucing up—in and near the Anaheim Resort District.
Disneyland Resort is by definition big news, and Mickey doesn’t have to bleed to lead; a simple squeak’ll do.
OC is a focal point for the company’s global moves.
Conflicting reports pegged Bob Chapek as heir to Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger, then said the latter might stay past 2019 after all. Chapek heads parks and resorts, the only positive part of Disney’s most recent quarter, and his move up is a domino effect down that could bump local boss Michael Colglazier.
If we’re talking 2019 for such a round of musical chairs, it’d hit just as Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge—which got its official name this year—debuts as a fitting crown to Colglazier’s extended reign.
Annual attendance here is heading north of 20 million—without the new Star Wars-themed land—and OC’s biggest employer grew its workforce this year without its fourth hotel, also on its way.
Room service and minibars are mere memory, and these days a $5 can of Pepsi is a tale told to scare children.
Even if the right corn dog still requires a short-term loan.
Travel and tourist areas instead fight in the foodie revolution. There’s a Bear Flag in Newport and Huntington beaches and a slew of new offerings at food halls in Anaheim, Santa Ana and Irvine, with more on tap.
The resort pushes $500 million a year in food, not all of it cornbread-covered pork on a stick; as its guest list grows, so, too, that tab.
Hotels added innovative venues and fare, such as Irvine Marriott at its Cannery Row outdoor event space and inside in a 500-square-foot YNK—You Never Know—which swaps decor and drink each quarter on a global scale, from Asia to Amsterdam, and Paris to the Big Easy.
Hotel transaction chatter increased, mostly on the subject of an anticipated slowing in sales as the national appetite for such deals hit a peak. OC was an outlier again. We didn’t see a marquee sale on the order of past year’s beachfront resort deals for, say, $1 million per room, but the county did OK.
Sunstone sold the Newport Beach Fairmont Hotel in February for $125 million; now The Duke, it’ll be a Renaissance property early next year. Pacific Hospitality Group bought AC Hotel Irvine in March for $65 million; and Embassy Suites in Orange and Pacific Edge in Laguna Beach went midyear for $57 million apiece.
Harry Pflueger of Maxim Hotel Brokerage in Newport Beach said, “Cap rates have held firm, and performance has held up.”
Orange County’s general aviation community is small but vocal, and accounts for 3.5% of John Wayne Airport’s annual revenue. It made noise this year, though. The niche, which encompasses private planes serviced by fixed-base operators and charter air carriers, such as OC-based JetSuite Inc., West Coast Aviation Services LLC and STAjets Inc., switched FBOs in April at JWA when ACI Jet Inc. won county supervisors’ nod to operate the space formerly occupied by Signature Flight Services Corp. JWA is also developing a master plan for general aviation, a process that will take at least until the end of 2018.
General aviation closed the year with the wrap-up of a request for proposals by Long Beach Airport, which seeks to build out a 31-acre parcel skewed toward general aviation work.
Honorable Mentions
• Music festivals came to the fore—several dozen a year in and around OC.
• Hotels and venues toe-dipped into virtual reality and other techie boosts.
• OC supervisors named a Dana Point Harbor master developer.
• The Olson-Marriott marriage continued on Lido and in Irvine.
• PHG sold Bacara, bought AC Hotel Irvine, and shuffled executives
Next Week
Coming in 2018: a Chinese fire sale?
—Paul Hughes
