Legoland Wants To Build A Hotel

by The Editors on January 19, 2009

They’ve been planning it for a while, but Legoland parent corporation Merlin Entertainment Group Inc. is going to ask the Carlsbad Planning board to make changes to the required parking requirements and let them build a hotel on the Legoland property, according to a Barbara Henry story in the North County Times.

Plans call for the three-story hotel to include a 14,383-square-foot restaurant, 11,051-square-foot retail space, a 6,364-square-foot bar/lounge, an outdoor pool and a water play area. It’s proposed to be built in two phases, with the first phase containing 175 hotel rooms.

Legoland has been a good neighbor to Carlsbadistan, however, this kind of expansion often results in the “Disneyfication” of the local city. First the attraction is promoted to city leadership as bringing new customers to local hotels, restaurants, and other businesses, then slowly the park builds out all the ancillary businesses itself keeping all the revenue in the park and siphoning the life out the local tourist economy. As anyone who has driven through Anaheim knows, it can get pretty ugly.

We hope the planning commission considers the ultimate ramifications of this request, before making any decisions..

[Link: North County Times]

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