By Doug Miller
Allen Rosenberg, president of the Alrose Group, closed on the building two weeks ago, paying $22 million to developer Charles Mayeri, according to people in City Hall.
The King David has been a boardwalk landmark of sorts for decades, notable especially for its eye-catching color scheme that harkens back to the era - the 1960s - when it was built. Staring out the window of his City Hall office, long-time City Manager Edwin Eaton said he would be grateful if the site were reborn. "I've been looking at that yellow and red monstrosity for 25 years," Eaton said.
On Monday, City Hall issued permits for plumbing and other work to be done, Building Department officials confirmed, so the color scheme may soon be a thing of the past.
In a brief telephone conversation, Rosenberg promised that the new facility would be a "boutique" hotel in the "New York City-South Beach" mold, and would feature an upscale restaurant in which every table would face the ocean. That part of the project, he said, was still in the "conceptual phase." He added that city officials had been very cooperative before deferring further questions to his public relations firm.
The lot is already zoned for hotel use, so no zoning variances are needed for the project.
In 2005, Charles Mayeri purchased the King David from the estate of Slomo Silvian, who died in 2001. The building had been operating as a home for senior citizens who did not require nursing care, but has been vacant for about a year.
Rosenberg reportedly has his eye on the lot next door, 50 W. Broadway, owned by Tech Realty Development, whose application to build a 20-unit luxury condominium tower on the 18,000-square-foot lot has been rejected by the city's zoning board earlier this year. Now Tech Realty is in negotiations to sell the lot to Rosenberg, several people confirmed.
Rosenberg's attorney, Lawrence Elovich, predicted that if the sale goes through, the Tech Realty lot would be the site of the new hotel's two-story parking garage, with what Elovich described as a "modern and beautiful" health club and swimming pool above it for guests. If so, Rosenberg will need a variance for pre-existing, non-conforming conditions on the Tech lot, a Building Department official said.
Rosenberg declined to comment on the adjoining lot, or on whether he would retain its existing retail units.
If the lots were combined, the square footage would total 40,000, which, Eaton pointed out, happens to be the minimum lot size required for a multi-unit residential tower. But Elovich said there would be no King David condos. "Mr. Rosenberg is committed to building a hotel," he said.
Long Beach's growth has been checked for years by its inability to support such a project. The King David, like its neighbors the Brighton and the Jackson, was built as a summer hotel, catering to a clientele with specific needs, said Roberta Fiore, the city's historian. "They went up in the 1960s, when the city was in a bad way," Fiore said. "They were earmarked for the Jewish community as kosher facilities where Floridians could stay between Passover and Rosh Hashana."
The new King David would be secular and open year-round, but even an expanded clientele would not necessarily help it overcome its biggest obstacle, Fiore said. "The question has always been 'What do you do with a Long Beach hotel in the wintertime?'" she said.
That question was put to Rosenberg's spokesman. "Even if summer, fall and spring are our prime seasons, this hotel has enough to offer to keep it thriving right through winter," Rosenberg said in a statement. "In short, it meets the need for upscale lodging in Long Beach, and will keep significant tourism and business dollars here. It's a win-win for everyone."
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