Diegan Hotel – Condo Units
By: Keriann Greaney

There’s nothing like getting pampered in a five-star hotel when you’re on vacation – ordering room service, housekeeping, spa treatments, and maybe even your own concierge.  Don’t you wish you could own your unit, use it whenever you want and participate in the financial success of the hotel operation? Well now you can thanks to a new trend that has been spreading all over the world.

Hotel-condos have been popping up everywhere -- the Mayfair Hotel in Miami, the MGM Grand Residences in Las Vegas, The Atlantis Condo Hotel in the Bahamas, and the Kempinski Resort Hotel in Andalusia, Spain, just to name a few.  These five-star condo hotels offer buyers prime real estate in some of the world’s most exquisite locations with the appeal of renting out their residences to hotel guests.  These abodes are hot commodities among busy professionals and people have been snatching up their own piece of the action often long before construction has been completed.

In early 2007 San Diego will be presented with its first condo-hotel called the Diegan located right in the heart of America’s finest city.  The $90 million project will revamp the 19th-century Jessop Building in the Gaslamp into an elegant, modern and chic getaway.  The architectural design, by TannerHecht Architecture, will blend the historic 19th-century façade with a modern 21-story glass and steel tower.  Slicing down the entire exterior of the building will be a stainless steel “blade” which will shimmer in the daylight and be illuminated at night with a canary yellow light, acting as a beacon that can be seen all throughout the Gaslamp.

The Diegan will offer the owners of the 185 condo units all the amenities of a five-star boutique hotel such as room service, a luxurious spa, two world-class restaurants, a world-class nightclub and the recently opened House of Blues, which is immediately adjacent to the hotel.  The House of Blues and the Diegan are currently working on an exclusive membership club called the Foundation Room, which will offer condo owners a free membership with the purchase of their units.  World-class KOI restaurant and Whiskey Bar are also currently in the works along with Ivan Kane’s Forty Deuce, the hottest nightclub in the United States having just recently opened at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.

Jim Trammell, President of the Fifth Avenue Partners, the project’s developer, says, “I truly believe that San Diegans have been waiting for something like this for a long, long time.  San Diego has always had world-class weather and its beautiful bay front.  When the Diegan opens it will finally have world-class nightlife and entertainment.”

Twenty-four of the 185 condo units will be “Luxe” penthouse units, which average about 1,200 square feet and start at approximately $1.5 million each.  The remaining units are being offered at an average sales price of $450,000 with an average size of approximately 400 square feet.  Over 55% of the condominiums have already been reserved with 100 of them being taken in the first three weeks of sales.

The unit interiors, designed by the famed New York firm David Rockwell and Associates, will come fully furnished with a style that Trammell describes as approachably modern but quintessentially Californian with extensive use of exotic woods, stone, art glass and fabrics.

In a nutshell, Trammell says the Diegan will incorporate “the hippest clubs, restaurants and hotel in all of San Diego contained on a single block bringing a Sunset Strip, Times Square and Vegas vibe to San Diego.”

265 West Market Street · 690 West B Street · San Diego, CA 92101
Phone: 619.236.9393 · Fax: 619.236.9399 · VerticalVillageRealty.com