Le Meridien Gets New Look : Owner Puts Millions Into Hotel Upgrading

Stanley Ho isn’t looking to make a quick buck with his first major purchase in Orange County.

Since buying Le Meridien Hotel in February, the wealthy Hong Kong investor has poured $3 million into renovations that are expected to be completed next month. He plans to pump an additional $2 million to further upgrade the 435-room hotel next year.

Ho will end up paying nearly $11,500 in renovations per room as he tries to take the four-star luxury digs in Newport Beach a notch higher.

He is “looking at the hotel on a long-term basis,” said Bernard Jacoupy, the hotel’s general manager. “He likes the property and wants to upgrade it. . . . He’s not looking for a quick profit.”

Jacoupy said Ho is interested in developing hotels throughout the United States.

Ho is one of Hong Kong’s wealthier businessmen and has diversified investments--including casinos and hotels--in Hong Kong and Macao, a Portuguese-controlled island off Hong Kong. In September, he purchased Le Meridien in Vancouver for a reported $47.7 million.

He purchased Le Meridien in Newport Beach earlier this year from Haas & Haynie Corp. in South San Francisco for an undisclosed sum and took over Haas’ long-term lease on the land. The hotel was valued at $65 million when it was built five years ago.

The purchase of the hotel in Koll Center Newport across from John Wayne Airport was shrouded in secrecy, but a few details surfaced this week.

Ho will keep the hotel in the Meridien chain, continuing a management contract with Meridien Corp., a hotel management company owned by Air France. Meridien Corp. will manage the property for at least 10 years, Jacoupy said.

Jacoupy said the new owner’s immediate goal is to upgrade Le Meridien from Four Diamond to Five Diamond status, under ratings awarded by the American Automobile Assn. The Meridien consistently has won the Four-Diamond Award and the Four-Star Award given by the Mobil Travel Guide.

To do that, Ho began the first-stage, $3-million renovation on May 1.

When the scaffolding and paint cans are cleared away next month, Le Meridien will have a spruced-up entrance, remodeled rooms, a new restaurant and additional guest services. Its ninth floor will be converted to what it calls a club floor, which will have higher-priced rooms, a 24-hour concierge and butler and a reception room where patrons can check in and out.

Throughout the hotel, rooms are being redone to add mini-bars, bathroom scales, additional phones, larger televisions and videocassette recorders.

A wedding garden already has been added next to a new restaurant, the Bistrot Terrasse, and a new bar is being built.

The additional $2-million upgrading to be done next year will include an as-yet unknown number of new shops and a grooming salon, Jacoupy said.

Le Meridien’s occupancy so far this year, he said, has been about 65%--a rate that hotel consultants with Laventhol & Horwath say was average last year for the John Wayne Airport area.