Grand Legacy at the Park in Anaheim has only about a 5,000-square-foot meeting space, but it’s a doozy.
It’s on the roof and across Harbor Boulevard from Disneyland Resort, with its regular fireworks shows.
The hotel has hosted more than 100 events averaging 150 people since the spot opened in June.
Not bad for a former Ramada Inn.
“We have a full-time salesperson and hired three outside reps” to handle bookings, said Food and Beverage Director Michelle White. “I sit at my desk and type contracts all day.”
The family-owned property completed a five-year, $14 million renovation last spring and christened its bar and lounge The Fifth, a play on words between where it sits on the fifth floor and the historical bottle size for distilled liquor.
It’s been busy ever since.
Local hospitality execs say two reasons amenities at or near hotels’ highest points are big business includes views of Disneyland and the beaches—though properties countywide offer the rooftop experience as they can:
• Two of Irvine Company’s three hotels have committed space to these areas.
• Coastal hotels have rooftop lounges with waterfront views.
• Central OC has its share of the trend, including Westin South Coast Plaza and a recently opened Anaheim Resort-area hotel.
• Hotels scheduled to open this year and next in Huntington Beach, the Irvine Spectrum area, and San Juan Capistrano plan to include such spaces.
Non-hotels are getting into the act, too: Anaheim Convention Center’s expansion includes a 10,000-square-foot balcony facing Katella Avenue and those Disneyland fireworks.
Good Problem to Have
Sometimes top-of-the-world amenities are popular enough to present the challenge of whether to sell the whole space, making it inaccessible to other guests.
The 70-room Inn at Laguna Beach offers its entire 900-square-foot rooftop to groups of up to 70. Sales Director Trisha Eschle said “a wine and painting workshop” has been popular, with its added benefit of permanent hotel keepsakes made by the guests themselves.
The 36-room La Casa del Camino in Laguna Beach, however, follows a mixed approach: Groups can take half or three-fourths of the roof, including the indoor Catalina Room.
Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel’s 180blu “would consider a buyout,” said Director of Sales and Marketing Shannon Gilbert. “But you’d have to take all the rooms” at the 396-room resort.
180blu’s attractions include surf scenes projected on a wall “as actual surfers disappear (for the day) from Salt Creek Beach,” Gilbert said, and a solo guitarist’s serenade.
New Kids
Waterfront Resort, A Hilton Hotel is “not (directly) offering it, but we would” allow a group to take its upcoming rooftop space, said Marketing Director Scott O’Hanlon. The 4,500-square-foot Offshore 9 opens in June atop its new tower.
The amenity joins that of Huntington Beach neighbor Paséa Hotel & Spa, which offers rooftop buyouts, and of other OC hotels planning to open over the next 18 months that also include the concept.
“It’s going to be the only rooftop bar in the area … 150 feet in the air,” said Senior Project Manager Michael Chavez of the 271-room Irvine Spectrum Marriott, which is scheduled to open at year-end.
Hotel Capistrano, a 102-room boutique hotel on tap for a summer 2018 opening by Stratus Development Partners LLC, also will feature a rooftop lounge.
Club Level
Island Hotel in Newport Beach and Hotel Irvine sell per diem access to Island Club and Club 12, respectively. Both will add it to a group member’s itinerary—but only individually.
“Consistency of guest experience” means offering access to all, said Island Hotel General Manager Gerard Widder.
The club includes a dozen services, such as some spa access, shoe shines, newspapers and curbside check-in.
Hotel Irvine Director of Sales and Marketing Joe Martino said that most often corporate guests use his property’s 2,000-square-foot space with 60-inch TVs, food service, and a wraparound terrace.
Westin South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa doesn’t offer coastal views but manages to have fun outdoors.
A drug company’s sales meeting that attracted 120 people staying three nights held boat races in the nearby swimming pool.
“They built full-sized cardboard boats and had to get in them,” said Sales and Marketing Director Trine Ackelman.
The Westin has lemon trees on the roof, and “we’re thinking of adding an herb garden,” she said.
The space has also hosted a charity fashion show, and Ackelman said “the next trend (in outdoor events) is silent discos (with) earphones for all attendees” so that an event doesn’t bump against local curfew or noise restrictions.
Seeing Stars
Grand Legacy has held up to four simultaneous events at its rooftop space. Parties range from 15 to 300 people, and White’s done meals for $7 a plate on up to $115 per person.
“Anaheim RV Park had their 60th anniversary here,” she said. “We plated 120 people, $100 a plate, with full linens and all the bells and whistles.”
Buyouts hold up to 330. Its first was a graduation party for police academy cadets.
Its biggest was Canterbury, U.K.-based Forge Gaming Network at gaming show BlizzCon in October at Anaheim Convention Center. A highlight was guests donning virtual reality goggles on a spinning 360-degree stage.
“Most groups are receptions tied to the conventions,” White said.
Munich-based headphone and microphone maker Telefunken GmbH booked the roof four nights in a row when it was in town for this month’s National Association of Music Merchants convention and trade show.
“They used to have a party at House of Blues,” White said, but that venue closed last summer at Downtown Disney and hasn’t reopened yet in its larger space at GardenWalk.
White previously worked for House of Blues owner LiveNation, a link that helped land Telefunken this time.
The hotel has one other place for meetings—a room that can accommodate 50 people that’s “rarely used,” she said. If it is, “there might be a presentation in the room, and then everyone goes up to the roof.”
