Jan. 21--San Diego's Manchester Resorts has taken control of the world-class Meadows Del Mar Golf Club and adjacent land earmarked for a 300-room luxury hotel. 

Manchester officials declined to say how much the company paid for the property in Carmel Valley. "We were successful in making an investment in the company that owns the site," said Dick Gibbons, president of Manchester Resorts' hotel division. "The terms are confidential." 

But San Diego County assessor's records show that a transaction involving the property was completed last week for $35 million. 

The developer of Meadows Del Mar, the Chadmar Group of Los Angeles, has been trying to sell the golf course and hotel site for more than two years. Chadmar also developed 134 home sites, which have sold out, surrounding the course. 

Company officials could not be reached for comment. 

Before Manchester, the operator of the Hotel del Coronado tied up the Meadows Del Mar land for a year while it tried to piece together a project. 

But this past fall, Destination Hotels & Resorts Inc. let its purchase option expire because it felt the $35 million price tag was too high. "We couldn't come up with that value," said Ron Silva, executive vice president of the company. 

Silva said the sharp downturn in the hotel business after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has made hotel development risky. In addition, it was unclear whether only a hotel or a combination of a hotel and time-share condominiums would be allowed under land-use approvals. 

Finally, the golf course has a "choppy financial history thus far," Silva said. The 18-hole course is one of San Diego's most expensive, with rates running from $110 on weekdays and $140 on weekends. But golf has been struggling, with rounds played nationwide down by more than 2 percent though October, according to Golf Datatech, an industry research firm. 

Silva added, however, that Manchester Resorts owner Doug Manchester is a savvy investor who knows the San Diego market and has a history of pulling off successful projects. 

Manchester developed the Manchester Grand Hyatt on San Diego's Embarcadero, which is in the midst of a 750-room addition. He also was behind a group that developed the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina. 

But Manchester failed to execute two other proposed hotel developments recently. He was forced to abandon plans for a 400-room beachfront hotel in Oceanside after an unfavorable ruling from the state Coastal Commission. 

Before that, the San Diego Unified Port District paid $5 million to buy out his option to develop a waterfront hotel at the former Campbell Industries shipyard. 

Now Manchester has set his sights on the Meadows Del Mar property, which boasts the only golf course in San Diego designed by renowned course architect Tom Fazio. 

"It's the best golf course in San Diego County and arguably among the best in Southern California," Gibbons said. 

Hotel industry experts estimate that a 300-room, top-quality hotel would likely cost $75 million to $100 million to develop. 

Gibbons said hotel financing may be difficult today, but "for the right product there's always a market." 

The Meadows Del Mar project began in the 1980s when Westshaw Associates paid $10 million for 388 acres off Carmel Country Road. 

But getting approval for the 134 home sites, hotel, golf course and clubhouse took years. The project didn't receive the final go-ahead from the city until 1996. 

The first home sites went on sale three years later. Today houses in the project sell for $1.8 million and $3.5 million. By year's end, about 100 are expected to have been completed. 

Gibbons said Manchester is studying the project to determine what type of development makes sense. The company has no timetable for making a decision. 

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(c) 2003, The San Diego Union-Tribune. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.