Details are emerging about a planned hotel development near the La Jolla Recreation Center.
A project that would convert the 16,683-square-foot, 10-room property at 484 Prospect St. into a nearly 20-room hotel went before two local planning groups this week.
The La Jolla Planned District Ordinance Committee gave its to the plan June 9, though the La Jolla Development Permit Review Committee the next day asked the applicant team to return with more information.
The proposal, led by the team that opened the Orli Hotel in 2022 at 7753 Draper Ave. (on the other side of the Recreation Center), would leave the exterior of the Prospect Street property largely intact, except for changing the paint to mirror the Orli.
However, the plan would renovate the interior to become lodging, with 19 rooms used as a hotel and the other as a residential unit to meet state requirements that new developments not remove housing.
Real estate websites currently describe the property as a single-family home, though it was built in 1925 as nurses’ housing for the original Scripps Memorial Hospital nearby, according to a San Diego Planning Department report in 2010. At the time of the report, it was being used for commercial offices.
The project also proposes to add a bulb-out on La Jolla Boulevard to better control traffic and provide additional space for pedestrians.
At the Planned District Ordinance Committee meeting, applicant representative Claude Anthony Marengo of La Jolla-based Marengo Morton Architects said the team is applying to renovate the property under a clause in the PDO related to a “heritage structure,” which he said pertains to a property that might not qualify for historic designation but is “worthy of being protected.”
Marengo said a hotel would not be allowed in that zone unless it is under the heritage clause.
He argued that “a house is not as viable with this many rooms. … If you look at 10 rooms in a single-family residence, there are not a lot of families that [would] occupy that.”
“There are some areas that lend themselves [to hotel uses],” Marengo added. “If you think about it, the rooms were all nurses’ quarters all the way down, so it was already set up [for this]. There wouldn’t be much construction and we could be up and running very quickly.”
The property has 20 parking spaces, including some in an underground garage, and a valet parking station would be in front. “Minimal” signage is proposed for the front, and no restaurant is planned, Marengo said.
During committee comments, acting Chairman Andy Fotsch said the proposed conversion “is a really good use for this building” and that he’s excited that the applicant team is local and familiar with La Jolla.
The PDO Committee reviews development applications for things such as facade renovations in the parts of La Jolla regulated by the Planned District Ordinance. Because the project would not change the exterior or intensify the use without providing parking, the board had few questions and comments about it.
The committee voted unanimously to the use of the heritage structure clause to convert the property to a hotel.
The Development Permit Review Committee heard the proposal June 10.
The city of San Diego is requiring a coastal development permit, but Marengo said the applicant team is contesting that because the project does not propose to change the exterior or the building itself.
The DPR board did not have lingering questions about the property itself, but member Greg Jackson said the uncertainty about the permit is problematic.
“Until we know whether the city is making us do a CDP, we don’t know how to think of the frontage issues,” Jackson said. “If the CDP is not required … I don’t have an issue. But if the city were to stick to its guns and negotiation were to ensue … that is something that presumably we would want to engage in. So I don’t know how to think about that.”
Thus, the committee asked the applicant to return with clarity about whether a CDP would be required.
Earlier this year, Orli co-owner Max Waitt, the applicant for the new project, said the property at 484 Prospect is “a masterpiece already and fits into our ethos and vision,” referring to him and his sister and Orli co-owner Hailey.
The Draper Avenue building that became the Orli Hotel is a 6,110-square-foot, historically designated former bed and breakfast inn designed by famed architect Irving Gill and built in 1913. When Waitt’s team renovated it, it touted the importance of retaining Gill’s signature features.
Last year, the renovation for the hotel won a La Jolla Historical Society Jewel Award for rehabilitation of a non-residential structure. ♦
