The last guests of the Anabella Hotel checked out Tuesday, Aug. 15.

Soon the Mission-style hotel next to the Anaheim Convention Center will be torn down and construction is expected to start in mid-September on a luxury resort.

“It’s a bittersweet moment for me,” Councilwoman Lucille Kring said at a small breakfast send-off. “I’ve always considered this as a hidden treasure, but I know the four diamond that is going to be built here will be superb.”

FJS, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Wincome Group, is planning the yet-to-be branded hotel to meet AAA’s definition of a four-diamond property.

The Wincome Group filed plans this week to tear down the Anabella Hotel and purchase 1.8 acres of adjacent city-owned property to build a $225 million luxury hotel next door to the Anaheim Convention Cente. Construction as soon as 2018 on the 634-room hotel.

The Wincome Group filed plans this week to tear down the Anabella Hotel and purchase 1.8 acres of adjacent city-owned property to build a $225 million luxury hotel next door to the Anaheim Convention Cente. Construction as soon as 2018 on the 634-room hotel.

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The Anabella Hotel at 1030 W. Katella Ave., will close sometime in mid-August and be replaced with a 600-room hotel. (File photo by Sam Gangwer, The Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Anabella Hotel at 1030 W. Katella is one of the sites in Anaheim planned for new luxury hotels. The hotel, on Katella Avenue adjacent to the Anaheim Convention Center and across the street from Disneyland Resort, will close sometime in mid-August and be replaced with a 600-room hotel.



The $220 million project is one of three luxury hotels the city approved in exchange for a tax reimbursement to the developers.

To spur the expansion of higher-end accommodations in Anaheim’s Resort District, the City Council last year approved two projects for Wincome and another for The Walt Disney Co., for which the companies will receive back 70 percent of the transient-occupancy tax guests pay at the new hotels for 20 years. Visitors in Anaheim pay a 15 percent bed tax.

The city has only two four-diamond properties, The Disneyland Hotel and Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel.

The city estimates Wincome’s projects replacing the Anabella and the Anaheim Plaza on Harbor Boulevard and Disney’s new 700-room hotel proposal in the parking lot of Downtown Disney will receive about $550 million in reimbursements over the next two decades.

“We feel that Anaheim is ready for a luxury, four-diamond, substantial property that will keep the city on the map,” said Paul Sanford, asset manager for Wincome. “We’ve seen developments in Los Angeles, San Diego. We have to be aggressive and keep up with those other destinations.”

In 1998, Wincome purchased what was then a collection of motels on Katella Avenue: the Magic Lamp, the Magic Carpet and Golden Forest Inn. The company renovated the sites and turned them into the 7.5-acre, 358-room Anabella in 2001 around the same time Disney California Adventure opened.

The new luxury hotel will feature 634 rooms, meeting spaces, restaurants, a pool, a spa and 30,400-square-feet of storefronts lining Katella Avenue. Sanford said he expects it to open in 2020.

The timing for the project is good now, Sanford said. The 200,000-square-foot expansion of the Convention Center will be completed by September and Disneyland’s “Star Wars” land, Galaxy’s Edge, is slated for opening in 2019.

The development, though, does face an obstacle. A union battling the developer successfully petitioned to put a referendum to pull the development agreement between the city and Wincome on the November 2018 ballot. If the referendum is successful, Wincome would still receive the tax reimbursements, however it could face challenges with entitlements and pulling permits.

“We feel confident that the residents will see this property as a benefit,” Sanford said of the ballot measure.

Sanford said the company has yet to discuss plans for closing the Anaheim Plaza for the luxury hotel planned at that property.