Hotels San Francisco

After years of turning away guests and raising room rates, hoteliers across the San Francisco Bay Area have been hit by a sharp drop in business travel that has left them struggling to fill rooms. The region has reported some of the nation's steepest declines--10% and more--in hotel occupancy rates during the first half of the year as the dot-com bust and a slowing economy have triggered major cutbacks in business trips and meetings.

Yes, it's almost here -- Valentine's Day. And it's not necessarily about chocolates, Champagne and rose petal turn-downs, though plenty of hotels are offering those standard heart pleasers. What about a little Snuggie nookie? Or Twister passion? Fortunately, some hotels have thought about catering to those freaky Valentines. San Francisco : Yvonne Lembi-Detert prides herself on never repeating a Valentine's Day package, or any package for that matter, at the urban hotel chain Personality Hotels that she heads.

Doormen, waiters, dishwashers, cooks and room cleaners walked off the job at two Hyatt hotels in San Francisco in a contract dispute over wages, benefits and the refusal of Hyatt to allow union organizing at its new Park Hyatt. The 745 striking employees worked at the Hyatt Regency and the Hyatt on Union Square.

Hotel magnate Ian Schrager's new luxury hotel in San Francisco has been hit with a racial bias lawsuit one year after he paid $1.08 million to settle charges that he fired "ethnic" employees to hire "cool-looking" white people at his Los Angeles hotel. The suit, filed Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court, charges Schrager's Clift Hotel with terminating a valet parking service because its black and Asian employees did not fit the hotel's image, lawyer R. Stephen Goldstein said Friday.

Accused savings and loan looter J. William Oldenburg may not be living in the lap of luxury any longer. But he was able to drop by for a visit last week. On the day Oldenburg filled out a statement claiming to be indigent and in need of a public defender to represent him in his legal battles, he was staying in perhaps the grandest hotel suite in the country--the $6,000-a-night Ben Swig Suite at the Fairmont Hotel atop Nob Hill. With tax, that's $6,600.

To build or not to build hotels on San Francisco's waterfront? That long-simmering issue, one of many facing the city's voters on Election Day, has provoked a storm of controversy for the beleaguered Port of San Francisco. The self-supporting agency, desperate for new sources of cash to fund freight shipping and fishing operations, has endorsed two projects with small hotels proposed for rundown piers south of Fisherman's Wharf.

Of course you want to take a vacation here. But where to stay? There are 176 hotels in the naked city (so says the convention and visitors bureau, anyway), and in the last two months I've seen 58 of them. I've also heard a few things, the way a nosy lodger does. The hottest property with the rich, famous and discrete? The Sherman House, say several cabbies and others.

Sir Francis Drake Hotel Foreclosed: Bank of America has foreclosed on the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, one of San Francisco's landmarks. The bank said it took control after the owners of the 417-room hotel, Santa Monica-based S.F. Drake Associates, defaulted on a $34.1-million loan. Bank of America said it would keep the hotel at Sutter and Powell streets open and hired Tishman Hotel Corp. of New York and Pittsburgh-based Interstate Hotel Management Corp. to run the hotel.

A Superior Court jury Friday awarded $4.5 million to 23 low-income tenants of a residential hotel who said they were harassed by the owner. Lawyers for the plaintiffs called the award the largest of its type in U.S. history. The tenants of the Balmoral Hotel sued owner James Lee and three of his partners for "malicious harassment," complaining that vital services were interrupted in an attempt to drive them out of the building in downtown San Francisco.

After years of turning away guests and raising room rates, hoteliers across the San Francisco Bay Area have been hit by a sharp drop in business travel that has left them struggling to fill rooms. The region has reported some of the nation's steepest declines--10% and more--in hotel occupancy rates during the first half of the year as the dot-com bust and a slowing economy have triggered major cutbacks in business trips and meetings.

San Francisco's landmark Fairmont Hotel is in the middle of $72 million worth of major surgery designed to update the posh inn while keeping it true to its 1907 architectural roots. "This restoration is a significant chapter in the hotel's evolution," said Edward E. Mace, president and CEO of Fairmont Hotel Management LP, which manages the Nob Hill property. The renovations began last September and are expected to be complete by September 2000.

Host Marriott Corp. on Wednesday said it bought the 336-room Ritz-Carlton San Francisco for $161 million, gaining one of the most luxurious hotels in one of the nation's most profitable markets. Host Marriott said it expects the five-star hotel to generate about $18.6 million in operating cash flow in 1999. San Francisco is one of the most profitable hotel markets because competition there is limited by high building costs.

Several hundred victims of a fire that swept through their residential hotel piled wet, smoky clothes into plastic bags and suitcases Tuesday and sought shelter. "I don't know where to go now," said Arcadio Sarmiento, 69, who lived in the Delta Hotel with his wife, Leonora. The blaze forced as many as 300 people into the streets. Arson investigators blamed the Monday night fire on a careless smoker.

Helen Huntington Perrin celebrated her 99th birthday in the Fairmont Hotel on Saturday, fulfilling a dream she thought had ended when the 1906 earthquake destroyed the interior of the Nob Hill landmark. Her father, Pliny C. Huntington, was to have been the general manager of the hotel in 1906, its inaugural year. The position disappeared when the quake struck, pushing back the opening a full year. Perrin, who was 11 in 1906, dreamed of spending her childhood in the hotel.

Of course you want to take a vacation here. But where to stay? There are 176 hotels in the naked city (so says the convention and visitors bureau, anyway), and in the last two months I've seen 58 of them. I've also heard a few things, the way a nosy lodger does. The hottest property with the rich, famous and discrete? The Sherman House, say several cabbies and others.

Glendale Federal Bank said it has sold the San Francisco Airport Marriott Hotel, which the Glendale-based savings and loan had acquired through foreclosure in July, 1994, to HMH SFO Inc., a subsidiary of Host Marriott Corp. Details of the transaction were not disclosed. Stephen J. Trafton, chairman and chief executive of Glendale Federal, said the sale is "another significant step forward in the bank's effort to reduce its level of problem assets."

Sir Francis Drake Hotel Foreclosed: Bank of America has foreclosed on the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, one of San Francisco's landmarks. The bank said it took control after the owners of the 417-room hotel, Santa Monica-based S.F. Drake Associates, defaulted on a $34.1-million loan. Bank of America said it would keep the hotel at Sutter and Powell streets open and hired Tishman Hotel Corp. of New York and Pittsburgh-based Interstate Hotel Management Corp. to run the hotel.