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Planners Get Turned On to Gaslamp
April 07, 2008
San Diego's historic downtown area becomes a trendy hotspot
By Anne Marie D. Lee
Planners are already familiar with the clement weather and scenic location of San Diego, Southern California's city by the bay. Home of Sea World, The San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, Balboa Park, Petco Park Stadium and the new Diamond View Tower overlooking the ballpark, the city offers visitors a cornucopia of fun sights and activities. But there's a recently emerging chic side to San Diego, one that's attracting attention from incentive groups and jet-set companies like Virgin Atlantic, Rolls-Royce and Jaguar. It's the downtown San Diego area known as the Gaslamp Quarter—the only two words a planner needs to know about this suddenly hip U.S. destination.
"In recent years, we have seen such a regeneration in the area," says Geraldine Hayes, general manager, TBA Global, a destination management company in San Diego, "from the high-rise buildings, to the city growing, to young people moving in. And that has transcended through to our events. And the convention center is downtown too, so if people are at a convention, they usually stay in one of the hotels right next to it, and a lot of their evening events are going to be in the Gaslamp."
An historic area, the Gaslamp district itself is not new, but has recently emerged with a panoply of cafes, galleries, restaurants and furtive nightlife. One increasingly trendy event idea, according to Hayes, is for groups to take over a nightclub. For a recent incentive and meeting group of 150 distributors and guests for a Canadian company called OK Tire, TBA put together a diverse lineup of events and activities that included, on the second night of the four-night trip, a private event at nightclub Belo (pronounced "below"). Described by Hayes as a great bar and lounge, Belo also has a stage for a band and dancers, and can accommodate 600 seated and 1,200 for a reception. For OK Tire, the club was set up with various food stations throughout its five different rooms. Says Hayes, "We had a band playing; we had go-go dancers. People could move around, they could sit leisurely, or they could listen to music; and we had really interesting food stations, great cocktails. It was really fun."
Boutique Glamour
 In any major city, the opening of a cool hotel is as attention worthy as a hot new club. In San Diego, the appearance of several new boutique hotels like the Ivy, Hotel Solamar and Hard Rock Hotel San Diego is turning up the heat in the Gaslamp Quarter, attracting younger, hipper groups. "We had a grand opening party last August that just kind of blew the roof off of San Diego," says Jessica Martinez, director of marketing for Ivy Hotel. Opened by two brothers and their company, Kelly Capital, Ivy is a renovation of the old Maryland Hotel, a project that cost $75 million. Maintaining the solid, brick-faced elegance of the original Victorian structure, the hotel reveals an ornate, youthful decadence on the inside. Designers Dayna Lee and Ted Berner of Powerstrip Studio in Hollywood, known for their movie sets, designed Ivy's dramatic interiors. The hotel features 159 guestrooms and 17 suites. Posh amenities at Ivy include 24-hour butler service, Escalade service and products by Molton Brown and Korres. Other features include 20,000 square feet of flexible event space and 9,000 square feet of meeting space. As a friendly wink to dog-toting starlets, the hotel is pet friendly.
Not even a year old yet, Ivy has quickly established itself as a place to be seen, and has been receiving a lot of buzz. For the hotel's soft opening in May of 2007, singer John Mayer performed. For the official grand opening weekend, held in August, the hotel kicked off festivities on a Friday with a charity celebrity poker tournament hosted by actress Jessica Biel, then on Saturday, a rooftop performance by British songstress Joss Stone, followed on Sunday by a leisurely poolside brunch. Recent corporate groups to the young Ivy include Rolls-Royce and Virgin Atlantic.
To celebrate its expansion of daily flights to San Diego, and a new fleet of high-tech planes featuring mood lighting, on-demand entertainment and a seat-to-seat chat feature, Virgin Atlantic held a "Love VirginAmerica Style" party at Ivy. For one night the airline took over the entire hotel: Envy, its nightclub/ultra lounge, and Eden Rooftop as well as a huge block of rooms, says Paul Krause, director of sales for Ivy Hotel. Sir Richard Branson was present for the event, where the nightclub was reconstructed to mimic the interior of the new Virgin America planes. To replicate Virgin's new seat-to-seat chat amenity, five giant flat-screen TVs were mounted over the bar and featured live text messaging amongst attendees. Says Krause, "We wanted to recreate the whole feeling for them in the party. It was really, really fun."
Prior to Virgin Atlantic's event, the hotel hosted a three-week event for Rolls-Royce promoting the Phantom Drophead Coupe. Waves of dealership owners and automotive press were brought in to stay at Ivy and view the cars, which were flown in and showcased at the hotel. Due to the success of the event, Ivy will be hosting another one like it for Jaguar this month, featuring the rooftop unveiling of the XP sedan.
A Hipster Hideaway
 Major chains like Hilton are also delving into contemporary colors and design and adding to the flourishing aesthetics of the Gaslamp. Opening this fall is the Hilton San Diego Bayfront hotel, which, according to Donovan Henson, director of convention sales, is situated in a prime location. Says Henson, "Hilton, in recent years, has been moving away from owning hotels, but felt so strongly about this location and this destination as a project that we staked 40 percent of the 350 million dollars to get this project started. And we have long-term management. It will always be a Hilton." Located just a block and a half away, the Hilton San Diego Bayfront is the closest of the large hotels to the Gaslamp Quarter.
Henson adds that the city of San Diego is building a pedestrian bridge. A practical as well as aesthetic piece, the bridge, says Henson, will stretch from the Hilton parking garage over Harbor Drive—the main road in front of the hotel—to the edges of the Gaslamp. Says Henson "You absolutely do not need a car at our hotel. Everything downtown is within walking distance."
 The Hilton San Diego Bayfront takes the natural beauty of the area to South Beach heights, with ultra-luxe design attributes such as a porte cochere that bathes guests in picturesque views of the Bay on their way to the main lobby. Says Henson, "People come to San Diego to see water. You want to feel water. Within ten minutes of leaving the airport [en route to the Hilton], you're seeing water as you arrive at the hotel. That's a nice way to get there." Other brow-raising highlights of the 1,190-room hotel are a 300-seat Fox Sports Grill with enormous windows overlooking the bay, an in-house premier restaurant created and overseen by Napa restaurateur Donna Scala, an oval-shaped lobby bar—called O—with sweeping panoramic views looking north and west over the bay, a 7,300-square-foot fitness center, and a spa featuring seven treatment rooms and four treatment cabanas on the pool deck.
Room amenities include "all the new bells and whistles," says Henson, such as wired and wireless Internet connection (available throughout the hotel); 37-inch plasma HDTVs; and workstations featuring Herman Miller ergonomic chairs and Lavazza two-cup coffeemakers. Outdoor features include a 4.3-acre park that is entirely owned by the hotel and can accommodate 15,000 people for a reception. Called Waterfront Park, it is located alongside the hotel's bayside promenade. Group sales for Hilton San Diego Bayfront started two years ago, and the hotel already has confirmed meeting bookings into 2018, according to Henson. On the incentive side, where the planning window is much shorter than with meetings in terms of booking ahead, there are still available dates in November and December, according to Henson, but the number of reservations for incentive groups are beginning to ramp up, stretching into 2009 and 2010.
Send comments to alee@incentivemag.com.
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