New Hard Rock Hotel Project Moving Forward in Gaslamp Quarter

SAN DIEGO-Developer 5th Rock LLC has garnered strong support for its proposed Hard Rock Hotel from the Centre City Development Corp., with the organization’s board of directors recently granting design review approval in a 4-0 vote. Board members Harold Johnson, Victor Vilaplana and Robert A. McNeely were absent. “People were, for the most part, unanimous in their approval and enthusiastic about the project,” Beverly Schroeder tells GlobeSt.com. Schroeder is a senior planner with CCDC. “When I went to our board, some of the board members commented that they felt it was not too often that they see such an exceptional project,” she adds, noting that “even though it is a new project and it’s large, the developer has decided to meet all the criteria of the Gaslamp Quarter,” the area of Downtown where the hotel is slated to rise. The new Hard Rock Hotel has been proposed for the Downtown block bounded by Fifth and Sixth avenues and K and L streets. It will rise in the southern end of the Gaslamp Quarter and thus, will “provide an entrance into the district that will be an asset to the whole downtown, but especially to the Gaslamp,” Schroeder tells GlobeSt.com.Designed by architectural firm Carrier Johnson, the development will be comprised of two towers–one standing 11 stories high and the other standing 12 stories high. As a result of the sizable height of the project, 5th Rock LLC has applied for a Gaslamp Quarter special permit to allow a height exception of up to 125 ft for the hotel. The developer is awaiting approval of this permit by the San Diego City Council. Once permission is granted, the developer will then be able to process the construction drawings through the city to build the project, Schroeder says. Design plans call for 388 hotel rooms; parking for up to 280 cars; and 23,000 sf of retail and restaurant space. One unique detail of the development will be the incorporation of the historic Otay Railroad Depot Building at Sixth Avenue and L Street that 5th Rock LLC intends to restore and use as the lobby bar. Dating back to 1896, the structure was designed by architect William Sterling Hebbard, a figure who played a prominent role in San Diego’s architectural community of the late 1800s and early 1900s.