"
the magnificent Pacific Ocean "
With ocean views selling at a premium throughout Southern California, it
can be dumbfounding to encounter a prominent downtown Santa Monica
hotel that deliberately averts its gaze from the water.
The boxy
former Holiday Inn near the Third Street Promenade, however, is probably
not long for this world. At the prompting of city officials, the owners
have come up with a plan to raze the aging hotel and erect a
three-tiered showplace that embraces the Pacific with outdoor terraces, a
rooftop restaurant and sea vistas from every possible angle.
The
proposed hotel and condominium development, which could cost as much as
$175 million, would undo a decision made in the 1960s when Santa
Monica’s seedy seaside posed a potential affront to visitors from the
Midwest and other more wholesome environs, hotel executive Debra Feldman
said.
The former Holiday Inn at 120 Colorado Ave. was set
perpendicular to the coast with a blank wall facing the ocean because
the owners of the chain catering to middle-class travelers did not want
guests looking out on what the company’s chief designer saw as “the
drug-infested, crime-ridden Santa Monica Pier,” Feldman said.
“An
architect from Springfield, Mo., was making a calculated choice,” she
said. “Unfortunately he forgot that in addition to the pier there was
the magnificent Pacific Ocean.”
In a reflection of how far Santa
Monica has come since the 1960s, the pier is now the city’s signature
tourist attraction, where well-kept shops and a bright amusement park
have replaced the sleazy waterfront bars and broken-down storefronts of
an earlier era.
