Construction of a hotel and gym in Aliso Viejo is set to start after being held up for a year while development plans were finalized.
The estimated $70 million Renaissance ClubSport combines a six-story, 175-room Marriott Renaissance hotel with a 70,000-square-foot upscale gym. It’s the first ClubSport in Southern California.
Groundbreaking for the project is set for next month, with an opening in early 2008.
The complex is being built at developer Parker Properties LLC’s Summit Office Campus. The complex off the San Joaquin Hills (73) Toll Road is home to the local headquarters of Miami-based Lennar Corp., among others.
Leisure Sports Inc. recently closed its acquisition of the land from Parker Properties for $6 million.
Pleasanton-based Leisure Sports is overseeing the project’s development and construction along with R.D. Olson Construction of Irvine. Washington, D.C.-based Marriott International Inc. bought Leisure Sports’ ClubSport unit in September.
The fitness center will be open to hotel guests and private members. Renaissance is hoping to sell more than 4,000 memberships to local workers and residents.
A restaurant, pool, lounge and conference space are part of the project.
The ClubSport project has been on the drawing board for several years.
Construction on the hotel was first expected to begin by late 2004, with an opening this year. Changes in development plans kept the project in limbo until this year.
Construction for the ClubSport comes at the same time Parker Properties has started construction on two office buildings at the Summit. The office buildings are going up next to the hotel site on Enterprise Drive.
The four-story office buildings are being built without a specific tenant in mind, and will total 140,000 square feet and 120,000 square feet each.
The buildings should be completed by mid-2007, said Russ Parker, co-chairman of the Aliso Viejo-based developer. RREEF, the pension fund investing unit of Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG, is financing the project.
It’s the fifth phase of construction for the Summit, a 5-year-old, 1 million-square-foot office campus. The complex should total about 1.8 million square feet when it’s finally built out.
Parker Properties already has the sixth phase of development mapped out.
Newport Beach-based Pacific Life Insurance Co., OC’s largest private company, plans to move as many as 1,000 workers to an eight-story, 242,000-square-foot office building at the campus. It should be built by early 2008.
And another project at the campus is expected from QLogic Corp. The network storage gear maker is said to be considering a 100,000-square-foot addition to its headquarters on land that it owns.
The average office vacancy rate for South County is 4%, according to a first-quarter report from CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.
Parker Properties is adding outdoor dining spots, nighttime lighting and covered “business bungalows” to lure tenants, Parker said. It will build a 35-foot waterfall in the courtyard between the two buildings.
