Ground was broken last week on a three-story, 103-room Holiday Inn Express at Sungrove Street and Garden Grove Boulevard in Garden Grove, the eighth such project in the city in the past two years.
The $5 million project by Sungrove Partnership Inc. sits on 2.2 acres of land two miles from Disneyland and adjacent to a Candlewood Suites. Projected opening for the hotel, which will be operated by U.K.-based Bass Hotels, parent company of Holiday Inn, is June 2001, just four months after the long-awaited California Adventure, Disney’s second local theme park, is slated to open in Anaheim.
Kris Kakkar, president of Santa Ana-based Whitestone Properties and one of the partners in the development, said the property’s location and a unique design for the hotel made the project an attractive investment opportunity. Kakkar said the partnership also includes Rick Niemann of Inland Communities in Newport Beach and Robert Park of Sacramento-based Park Crest Developers, which will build the hotel.
Garden Grove has actively recruited developers for its redevelopment efforts over the past few years, providing incentives and expediting permits to entice builders to the city. The result is a head start over neighboring Anaheim in building new hotels that are expected to fill up quickly once the Convention Center expansion is complete in December and the new Disney attractions open in early 2001.
A 172-room Hilton Garden Inn and 176-room Hampton Inn opened last year and a 167-room Homewood Suites will open this year on land owned by the Garden Grove Redevelopment Agency at Harbor Boulevard and Chapman Avenue. Joining them later this year and next year will be a 384-room Crowne Plaza, 371-room Marriott Renaissance and 375-room Embassy Suites on the two parcels at the same intersection. n
