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Would-be Padre buyers envision boutique hotel
| Monday, Mar 3 2008 10:55 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday, Mar 4 2008 7:53 AM
The resurrection of downtown's venerable Padre Hotel appears imminent. A pair of San Diego developers behind ultra-modern boutique hotels in San Diego and Lake Havasu City, Ariz. will likely close escrow on the landmark this week.
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San Diego-based Dm Construction Services will take out walls and some plumbing to make way for 112 rooms for the new ownership.
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The current owners, the San Diego-area property management firm Pacifica Enterprises LLC, put the Padre up for sale in June, after an unsuccessful five-year struggle to transform the building into condos.
The potential buyers, hotel operator Brett Miller of Eat.Drink.Sleep. and architect Graham Downes of Graham Downes Architecture, plan to scrap the condo idea and restore the circa-1920s Padre to its original use as a hotel.
"When you walk into the Padre, it will be an experience," Miller said. "Words can't tell you, but there will be life going on."
Miller declined to state the purchase price for the Padre, but said it was "fair." Pacifica Enterprises listed the building for sale at $5.6 million.
Renovation plans call for grand entrances, an upscale restaurant, lounge, coffee shop and 112 guest rooms, Miller said.
The outside will remain much the same.
Miller said he would know more about when the Padre might possibly reopen after meeting with city building division staffers this Wednesday.
A self-described "valley boy" who grew up in Hanford and Visalia, Miller said Bakersfield has the population to support a "highly designed, highly serviced boutique hotel."
The project would be an "outstanding opportunity for downtown," said Rhonda Barnhard, the city's assistant economic development director.
Eric Jencks, a developer working to convert downtown's Hay Building, on the corner of 19th and Eye Streets, into residential lofts, was also excited about the prospect of the Padre's revival.
"That would be a wonderful shot in the arm (for downtown)," Jencks said.
'START BRAND NEW'
A high-end hotel would be a dramatic turnaround for the building, which drew the scorn of downtown residents and business owners in early 2007, when piles of junk were allowed to accumulate outside.
Pacifica cleaned up the mess, but the company was never able to make good on its vision of partitioning the Padre into condo units.
The condo project was dragged down by controversy over how Pacifica handled asbestos removal from inside the hotel. The company was twice cited for asbestos violations, and the Kern County District Attorney's office filed a lawsuit against Pacifica regarding the carcinogen's removal. Workers who said they were exposed also spoke out.
The lawsuit was settled in June 2005 for $460,000, with the company admitting no wrongdoing.
The presence of asbestos is no longer a major issue, Miller said,
"Pacifica, they (removed) 95 percent of it," Miller said.
He and Downes have hired professionals to mitigate the risk, and are working with the air pollution control districtto ensure the work is done correctly, he said.
Construction workers were already inside the Padre Monday, pulling out windows and setting up trash chutes to be used during an upcoming three weeks of "soft demolition," said Pedro Nunez, a supervisor on-site with San Diego-based Dm Construction Services.
The crews will be removing drywall, plaster wall and steel framing installed when plans still called for putting condos in the building, Nunez said.
"They're going to start brand new," Nunez said.
'GOING AFTER IT'
Miller and Downes previously worked together to create Tower23 on San Diego's Pacific Beach. The hotel's Web site shows sleek rooms and a bar with a wall of moody, color-changing lighting.
The pair also are renovating the waterfront Agave Inn in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., which they plan to rename as "Heat" in mid-April.
But the square footage of the Padre Hotel is one and a half times as big as either of these projects, Miller said.
He knows it's a tremendous undertaking for a small company.
"We formed a team and we're going after it," Miller said.
They want the Padre to be the nicest hotel in town, he said.
THE MILLER YEARS
Before Pacifica Enterprises, there was Milton "Spartacus" Miller. And the Padre Hotel's grand edifice is perhaps matched only by the outsized personality of Miller, its late owner.
Miller, who bought the building in 1954, went to war with the city over its demand that he bring the 200-room hotel in line with safety codes.
In the 1960s, Miller erected a sign reading "Alamo Tombstone" on the hotel's roof, and a black-and-white missile he said was aimed at the bureaucrats.
By 1996, the city had closed all but the bottom two floors of the Padre to overnight guests.
The hotel's quirky "Town Casino" bar was a magnet for young professionals and tattooed punks alike.
The defiant rooftop ornaments remained until Miller's wife, Lora Gordon Miller, sold the hotel to Pacifica Enterprises LLC in 2002.
Lora Gordon Miller died in May of last year, saddened to see the Padre sitting unused, her sisters told The Californian at the time.
Brett Miller, who is not related to the former owners, said he and Downes hope to preserve some of Miller's famous character in their project.
An early idea for the future bar, he said, is to name it "The Spartacus."
Staff writer John Cox contributed to this report.