Dreamboat

Photo courtesy of Downtown Development Activity Board, 2345 Kettner site

Consortium Holdings' Little Italy "Dreamboat" hotel project has not had a straightforward journey.

Originally, Dreamboat was planned to be CH's first ever ground-up hotel development, located at 2345 Kettner Boulevard on the corner of W Juniper Street. It would have been a four story building featuring 59 hotel rooms, 77,244 sf of retail space, and 1,780 sf of office space replacing a site currently occupied by an office building, two single-family homes, and four other properties.

However, the Dreamboat name has since been passed on to another CH project: a renovation of Little Italy's La Pensione Hotel, located across from Piazza Della Famiglia and purchased by CH in 2021. The reason for the pivot in name and timeline by CH is due to the permitting issues that the 2345 Kettner site ran into, due to its existence under San Diego International Airport's landing path violating land use restrictions.

Photo courtesy of SanDiegoVille.com

The existing 67-room La Pensione will be fully renovated to feature detailed Art Deco-inspired interiors, as well as three new restaurants - including Little Italy's first Korean BBQ restaurant. This in-depth renewal is very much in line with CH Projects' other hotel projects in The Lafayette and The Baby Grand. This iteration of Dreamboat is expected to be completed by January 2028.

As for the site at 2345 Kettner, CH Projects plans to pivot that site to a different program, as of this writing yet to be disclosed.