A Nickelodeon Hotel & Resort, featuring water slides and a lazy river, got the green light this week to be built in Garden Grove.

The Garden Grove City Council unanimously approved the sale of city land to a developer for a Nickelodeon-themed hotel, with 500 guest rooms, a spa, restaurants, and a 600-seat theater.

The $277 million project on Harbor Boulevard and Twintree Lane is slated for the city’s tourism district, called the Grove District, which attracts tourists visiting neighboring Disneyland.

City officials touted the benefits of the project as “pretty significant,” which include millions in local taxes and hundreds of hotel and construction jobs, with a preference for hiring local residents and union construction workers to build the resort.

“I can’t decide what I’m more excited about — to have SpongeBob or to have local jobs,” Councilwoman Kim Nguyen told her colleagues prior to the vote on Tuesday, Sept. 13.

Councilwoman Stephanie Klopfenstein, who represents the area where the hotel will be built, called it “a historic project for Garden Grove” that will drive more tourism to the city.

To make the deal happen, Garden Grove agreed to give the developer, Newage Garden Grove II LLC in Arcadia, with Kam Sang Company Inc. as its managing partner, a break on the land sale and reimbursement of hotel tax revenue, expected to equal $103 million in public assistance over a 30-year period.

Garden Grove is selling 3.72 acres of land the city has been acquiring for the past two decades. The city paid $9.7 million for the land, and its related costs and is selling it for $920,000, according to city documents. (The estimated value of the land is $10.6 million, according to appraisals obtained by the city.)

The agreement also calls for giving the developer up to 60% of the city’s hotel tax revenue for three decades, up to $93 million.

“To achieve the scale of destination project, despite the significant challenges brought on by the COVID pandemic, an economic development assistance program would be necessary to bring this caliber of project forward,” assistant city manager Lisa Kim told the council while presenting details of the agreement.

Meanwhile, a city analysis predicted the project will generate approximately $236 million in various taxes and generate more business for Garden Grove’s hotel corridor, pumping more than $1.75 billion into the city’s economy and another $2 billion to the region over a 30-year period, according to city documents

Kim said the project is expected to create 600-700 construction jobs plus 300-400 permanent hotel jobs and another 200 temporary hotel jobs.

The agreement incorporated a preference for hiring local residents in the construction of the project, with 60% of those jobs going to union workers. That was greeted enthusiastically by a number of union members in the audience, who spoke favorably of the agreement.

“These kinds of projects provide awesome opportunities for young men and women that are not going to go to college, but we will be able to put them on a pathway to the middle class,” said Ernesto Medrano, representing the Los Angeles and Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council.

However, one labor group was left out of the agreement: the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 441. Councilman John O’Neill, the group’s president, recused himself from the dais and did not participate in the discussion or votes related to the project. But some union members addressed the topic during public comments, telling council members they were disappointed not to be included.

“Having the IBEW left out of this agreement is a hard pill to swallow,” said one Garden Grove resident who also is a representative of the labor group.

The city and the developer are expected to close escrow on the property before the end of the year. Under a schedule included in the agreement, following approvals and permits, groundbreaking is expected by Nov. 1, 2024, and completion of the hotel is slated for 2027.

The resort will feature a 23-story hotel, with a 9,490 square-foot ballroom, a variety of restaurants and other food areas totaling 22,296 square feet, a 7,000-square-foot arcade, a spa and fitness center, and 528 parking spaces. Other entertainment amenities will include a Nick Studio, a Studio Hall, and a Kid’s Lounge.

“We’ll be bringing Nickelodeon to the real world,” said John Hicks, project manager for the Kam Sang Company. “I’m excited to see the characters off screen and bring them to reality.”

The resort will include water slides, splash zones, a pool, and a lazy river where guests “have an animatronics experience,” Hicks said.

The hotel does not plan to offer day-time passes, Hicks said. It’s too early to say how much it will cost to spend the night at the Nickelodeon Hotel Resort, he added.

The resort in Garden Grove may be unique in the U.S.

The cable television channel best known for its shows for children and teens is affiliated with only two hotels and resorts in the world: one in the Dominican Republic’s Punta Cana and the other in Mexico’s Riviera Maya, according to the Nickelodeon Hotels & Resorts website. There used to be one in Orlando that featured an outdoor waterpark, but that is now a Holiday Inn resort, according to the website.

Nickelodeon representatives could not be reached for comment Friday.

Council members Phat Bui and George Brietigam, both former planning commissioners, noted that the project has been in the making for about a decade.

“It’s been a long road,” Bui said.

It first came to the City Council in 2016, but the developer had been in talks with Garden Grove since approximately 2015 or 2016, Hicks said. At the time, the plan called for a larger project that included three towers with 100 timeshare units on nine acres. But some homeowners, Hicks said, were not willing to sell their houses, and the project was downscaled to the land that is already vacant and available.

Earlier this summer, a union representing hospitality workers, UNITE HERE Local 11, voiced opposition to the project, saying there is a better use for that land by building much-needed homes, as mandated by the state of California.

Maureen Blackmun, president of the Garden Grove Neighborhood Association, welcomes the project.

“This is a win for our city,” Blackmun said.

Related Articles