king of the west coast hotels

the biggest hotel on the west coast, a marriott with 1929 rooms, is set for downtown san diego adjacent to petco. architects are johnson fain, and if you check their website, you can see a flash demo of the project (click enter, then "our work", then "projects" on the top right, then "the marriott at ballpark village"). i like the second-story rooftop garden, but it's hard to tell much from the renderings shown - they don't fully show the two 487' towers. hopefully more information will be available at the ccdc public meeting on the project; the image above is from their website and i believe this hotel is to the top left of petco.

basically, if this is what it takes to keep comic con in town, it's worth it. the contract for the con is up in 2012, and there's been rumblings of moving it to vegas where rooms are in plentiful supply. we already have a giant marriott downtown, but i understand that the more hotel rooms downtown has - regardless of the name on the building - the better for business.

the UT article does provide some comic relief from the HOA president at the nearby ICON condos - she's concerned about additional traffic, lack of street parking, and decreased property values due to blocked bay views. spoken like a true san diegan. does she understand that she's living downtown with public transportation, which is meant to be developed densely? and that just because her condo exists near the bay, it doesn't guarantee sightlines to it?

the tower height is another reminder of how ridiculous and limiting the FAA height requirement is and what it's done to downtown. this part of east village has got to be very far from any kind of flight diversion path. here's an opportunity to build a very tall building, to minimize the width of the structure to preserve those sightlines that our HOA friend above is worried about. it's time to appeal to the FAA to reconsider the limits they've imposed on the city's vertical growth in areas far from the airport.