Irvine Company has hired 1,000 people with plans to add 200 more as it readies itself to open The Resort at Pelican Hill in Newport Coast next month.
The hiring comes after the Newport Beach-based real estate developer and owner laid off more than 100 employees last month amid the downturn in housing developments and the office market.
The mass hiring for the hotel and golf course is a 37% increase in workers for Irvine Co., which stands to be at 4,400 total employees when Pelican Hill opens on Nov. 26.
The hiring puts Irvine Co. on track to be the biggest job gainer this year in the county, which has seen a running slide in employment since late last year.
In August, employers here shed 26,600 workers versus a year earlier, a 1.8% decline, according to the state’s Employment Development Department. The county’s unemployment is 5.8%, the highest in more than a decade.
The majority of Irvine Co.’s hiring has been for restaurant, housekeeping and other hotel operations, according to Arthur Nathan, vice president of human resources for Irvine Company Resort Properties, the division that oversees Pelican Hill and two other company hotels.
The biggest number of hires, 500, is front desk, guest relations, engineering and housekeeping workers.
Another 400 people were hired for food and beverage operations, including cooks, waiters, hostesses and bus people.
About 75 of the hires are managers and directors.
Some 60 people were brought on just to drive vehicles around the 504-acre resort. Those include parking lot shuttles and golf cart operators.
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Driving range at Pelican Hill: reworked courses opened a year ago |
Human resources, accounting and purchasing employees make up the rest of the hires.
Interest
Earlier this year, Irvine Co. ran ads with newspapers and government employment agencies for hotel staff, Nathan said.
“We had 14,300 applicants apply and only anticipated 9,000,” he said.
The company set up an employment center in Santa Ana that saw more than 2,000 applications in a few months, according to Nathan.
About 60% of applicants have worked in hotels with the rest coming from other industries, he said.
One of the challenges was hiring people weeks, even months, before they’d actually start working at the resort, Nathan said.
Many workers were hired in July and August and didn’t start until they began training in September. Not everyone hired early on ended up staying as some found other jobs.
“You have to account for all of that attrition,” Nathan said.
Irvine Co. used its own team of internal recruiters to hire managers and directors. Nathan, with 26 years of hotel management experience, joined in July 2007.
He said the opening of Pelican Hill is similar to his experiences opening Wynn Las Vegas and Wynn Macau.
“Having to hire 1,000 people versus 10,000 needed at my last hotel really doesn’t change the dynamics that much,” he said.
Pelican Hill, which has 332 bungalows and villas, is the 10th hotel Nathan said he’s helped staff for and open.
Donald Bren, chairman and owner of Irvine Co., had little to do with the hiring at Pelican Hill, though he has had a big hand in the resort’s design, even down to staff uniforms.
“He is the vision behind the place,” Nathan said. “We know what he’s looking for in a staff and he trusted us to do it.”
Number of Jobs
Nathan and other executives planned their hiring based on the number of guests expected during Pelican Hill’s first few weeks.
“The worst thing you can do in a big opening is entice people to leave a good job only to have to lay them off a month or two later,” Nathan said.
The company plans to “grow the business and grow the staff accordingly,” he said.
Training is under way for much of the recent hires. Irvine Co. has set up training areas at a campus in the Irvine Spectrum for restaurant staff and other workers.
Some are training at the hotel.
“When you open a hotel, you are subject to when the contractors turn it over to you,” Nathan said.
Training is set to continue this month and in November with 10 days of “live testing” with Irvine Co. employees and others serving as guests before the opening.
Some speculate Irvine Co. could be looking to acquire hotels to add to Pelican Hill and its other hotels, Island Hotel Newport Beach and Hyatt Regency Irvine.
The company always looks for good opportunities, according to Nathan. But for the next six to 12 months Irvine Co. is focusing on getting Pelican Hill running smoothly.
“Once you shake everything out and normalize operation at Pelican Hill, who knows what the future holds,” Nathan said.
California Coastal Reworks $210M Credit Facility
Irvine-based homebuilder California Coastal Communities Inc. said last week it had reworked $210 million worth of bank loans, which should allow it to better finance the construction of homes at its Brightwater development in Huntington Beach.
The reworked credit facility, made with two bank syndicates and managed by KeyCorp, defers $25 million of debt payments that were due at the end of the year.
It also preserves an additional $75 million of borrowing capacity between now and September 2009.
Only $1 million of principal payments now are due by year’s end.
California Coastal, which counts a market value of about $25 million, expects to pay off the principal with proceeds from pending home sales.
The builder said it delivered seven homes at its Brightwater development on Huntington Beach’s Bolsa Chica last quarter, at an average price of $1.4 million.
So far, 37 sales have been made at Brightwater, and $28.4 million worth of homes are in backlog at the coastal project.
A total of 356 homes are expected to built at the development, but the company doesn’t have an exact timeline.
,Mark Mueller
