![\"A](\"https:\/\/missionvalleynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/20150831_161604web.jpg\")
<\/a>(Foto por Ken Williams)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cMost of the older buildings will be demolished including one- and two-story ranch-style\/motel rooms, the Meeting House, Regency Ballroom, Garden Ballroom, the existing restaurants, lobby and Bella Tosca Spa,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Convention Center will remain as is and will be completely refurbished,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In recent years, luxury hotels built in Downtown and Del Mar have eclipsed the glamour that once belonged to the Town and Country.<\/p>\n
Last year, Atlas Hotels formed a joint venture with Lowe Enterprises and AECOM Capital to take over the aging property. Soon after, Destination Hotels \u2014 the hospitality management subsidiary of Lowe Enterprises \u2014 assumed operation of Town and Country, and Michael Slosser was named vice president and managing director of the 935-room resort. Slosser also oversees Paradise Point Resort & Spa and L\u2019Auberge Del Mar.<\/p>\n
Slosser and well-known chef Paul McCabe were behind the $27 million renovation of L\u2019Auberge Del Mar in 2008. Slosser directed the transformation from a dated inn into a contemporary coastal retreat while McCabe launched Kitchen 1540 restaurant, which has earned critical acclaim.<\/p>\n
The two men will be charged with transforming the Town and Country property into an \u201curban oasis\u201d resort and meeting place, according to a news release.<\/p>\n Phillips described the architectural theme will be \u201cmidcentury modern with a casual, San Diego style.\u201d<\/p>\n With a target of early 2018 for the project\u2019s completion, the reimagined hotel will have 688 rooms, nearly 200,000 square feet of meeting space, three new restaurants in a 10,000-square-foot food and beverage facility, a 5,000-square-foot spa and an 11,000-square-foot lobby with an arrival bar overlooking a new 2-acre water attraction.<\/p>\n \u201cWe plan to create something much different than a typical branded hotel \u2014 this will be an urban, campus environment designed to attract sophisticated meeting planners and discerning leisure travelers,\u201d Slosser said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the biggest venture I have ever taken on,\u201d added McCabe, who has reinvented San Diego eateries such as Delicias, Top O\u2019 the Cove and Anthony\u2019s Star of the Sea. \u201cI will be using everything I\u2018ve learned to-date to make this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n In his role as executive chef, McCabe will reconceive the resort\u2019s food and beverage operations \u2014 developing menus and concepts for the new restaurants.<\/p>\n McCabe\u2019s kitchen apprenticeship started in 1984 under Michel Banchet at Jean Bertranow\u2019s L\u2019Ermitage, known as the genesis of French fine dining in Los Angeles. His resume includes serving as executive chef at five-star L\u2019Ermitage Hotel in Beverly Hills. Before that, he spent three years at the award-winning Enchantment Resort in Sedona, Arizona, where he worked his way up to executive chef at the fine dining Yavapai Restaurant.<\/p>\n For the past six decades, the Town and Country Resort has anchored Mission Valley\u2019s hotel row and grown into the largest privately owned convention and meeting hotel on the West Coast. But the future will see additional growth.<\/p>\n In January, the Mission Valley Planning Group voted 13-4 to remove the Town and Country site from the Atlas Specific Plan [bit.ly\/1JAafS5<\/a>] \u2014 which was approved in 1988 and is grandfathered in \u2014 and initiate a new Multi-Use Transit Oriented Development Plan. In addition to the massive renovation of the resort and convention center, the property owners intend to eventually build 840 multi-family residential units close to the Fashion Valley Transit Center, which includes bus transfer and trolley Green Line services. Those plans, which appear to be in limbo, require the developer to incorporate San Diego River Park Master Plan elements into the housing project.<\/p>\n \u201cA significant amount of resources will be provided to embrace the San Diego Riverpark Master Plan,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
(Courtesy of Town and Country)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n