Alila Marea Beach Resort in Encinitas to open next year

The $110 million new Alila Marea Beach Resort is set to open in January 2021 on the coastal bluffs of Encinitas.

Known for years by its placeholder name of “Encinitas Beach Hotel,” the 130-room “barefoot luxury” hotel will be the latest addition to Hyatt Hotels’ growing Alila brand portfolio which includes just one other United States location, the Ventana Big Sur.

The 4.3-acre site is located just west of La Costa Avenue’s intersection with Coast Highway 101, part of a site that once housed Cabo Grill. Initial plans for the project date back to the 1980s: Fenway Capital Advisors purchased the property in 2017 and worked with JMI Realty to develop the land. Originally proposed as a beach resort sister-property to the La Costa Resort & Spa, the project is now a stand-alone hotel. Construction started in early 2019, involving sand replenishment just south of South Point Beach.

San Diego-based Joseph Wong Design Associates created an “eco-friendly” design for the hotel, using natural building materials and colors that will blend into the existing bluffs.

A rendering of an outdoor bar area of the Alila Marea Beach Resort.

(Courtesy)

Hotel amenities will include a “world class” spa and wellness center, an oceanfront pool with an infinity-edge Jacuzzi and an ocean-view restaurant with a rooftop patio. The property will offer 28,500 square feet of meeting and event space with six indoor-outdoor venues. The hotel plans to offer locally-inspired programming including a partnership with local surfer and environmentalist Rob Machado.

A public staircase in the area will remain and a new beach access pathway will be added from La Costa Avenue. The hotel project will also make improvements to the Coast Highway and La Costa Avenue intersection.

In August, the Encinitas City Council rejected an appeal for Surfer’s Point, a 25-unit hotel/timeshare development proposed across the highway from the Alila Marea Beach Resort. City council upheld a planning commission decision that the project’s permits had expired and that the latest version of the plans appeared to be “substantially changed” and would require new environmental review.