The developer is John Case, who previously built the 116-unit Ocean Club condominiums on Ocean Boulevard. Preliminary plans call for the hotel to straddle the Toyota Gran Prix of Long Beach race course, which would require that the course be redesigned so some of the hotel units could effectively become skyboxes.

Nothing can happen soon. City officials, though frustrated by delays in Ohio-based Developers Diversified Realty Corp.'s planned Queensway Bay project, can't negotiate with any other builder while the DDR agreement is still intact.

The council in December threatened to dissolve its contract with DDR. The developer has had trouble lining up financing for the mixed-use Queensway Bay complex, in part because not one but two theater tenants who would anchor the $100-million project have backed away from their preliminary commitments.