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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
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SpongeBob SquarePants to Regale Visitors at Hotel in Liberty Station

Anaheim has the mouse. But San Diego is going to get an absorbent yellow sea sponge with his own pet snail.

SpongeBob SquarePants who lives in a pineapple in the city of Bikini Bottom on the floor of the Pacific should regale vacationers at an upscale San Diego resort.

At least that’s what Marriott International and Viacom have in mind with their new brand , Nickelodeon Resorts by Marriott. The first, a 650-room hotel with a 100,000-square-foot water park, is expected to break ground in Liberty Station in January and open in 2010, according to an announcement by Marriott in late May.

Plans are to develop up to 19 more by 2020. Miller Global Properties LLC, a real estate investment and development company with offices in Denver, New York City and London, is the primary investor. Marriott will manage the properties and Nickelodeon will receive licensing fees.

Aside from the United States, locations are being considered abroad.

Miller Global owns hotel properties in the United States and Europe, including the Nickelodeon Family Suites by Holiday Inn in Orlando, Fla.

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Taking To The Skies:

After a flat year in 2006 Lindbergh Field is seeing an increase in its passenger count once more. A total of 1.5 million people flew in and out of the single-runway airport in April, 59,803 more than the same year-ago month, according to the most recent air traffic report by the San Diego Regional Airport Authority.

While the monthly count rose 4.1 percent, the count of 5.6 million for the year to date was an increase of 2.5 percent compared to the like period in 2006.

Freight hauling was off by 13.1 percent to 10,850 tons in April, and down 6.2 percent to 47,427 tons for the first four months altogether.

Aircraft operations, meaning takeoffs and landings, were up 3.4 percent on the month to 17,829, but were basically flat year-to-date at 71,109.

Lindbergh Field tallied 17.5 million passengers in 2006; 17.4 million in 2005; 16.4 million in 2004 and 15.3 million in 2003.


Send tourism and hospitality news to Connie Lewis via e-mail:

clewis@sdbj.com

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