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January 9, 2002
In November 2001, the San Diego Convention Center recorded its highest ever number of peak hotel room nights on record for any November since its opening in 1989.
The 18,870 peak hotel room nights — the maximum number of hotel rooms purchased by out of town delegates during each convention — for November 2001 was also the highest month for hotel room use by delegates in three years.
Direct delegate spending in November reached $48.4 million, with transient occupancy taxes of $1.53 million.
Despite cancellations at many other meeting facilities in the United States, the San Diego Convention Center says it suffered only one cancellation related to Sept. 11: the Financial Planning Association, a meeting of 4,000 people scheduled Sept. 14-16, 2001, due to the inability to travel.
Three other conventions chose to postpone their scheduled meeting dates by several weeks to allow participants to regroup: the Oracle Applications User Group (rescheduled from Sept. 17-24 to Nov. 25-Dec. 2); the Health Industry Distributors Association (rescheduled from Oct.2-7 to Dec. 4-9); and the Sonic Franchisees Meeting (rescheduled from Sept. 22-28 to Jan.29-Feb.1).
"This is truly a remarkable result,” says Carol Wallace, president and CEO of the Convention Center Corp. “Despite many dire predictions for our industry, the San Diego Convention Center continues to be a powerful economic engine for this region in a time when it is more critical than ever before. Quality will always be in demand, and with the recently opened expansion, there is no doubt that the San Diego Convention Center is one of the finest meeting facilities with the finest staff of professionals in the world. These results reconfirm it."
Among the meetings that took place in November were the Society for Neuroscience, the largest single convention of 2001 and the expanded center’s first full facility event with 28,600 delegates; American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging; American Association of Equine Practitioners; and California School Boards Association.
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In his latest ConVis Update e-mail, Reint Reinders, president of the visitor group, reports that modest increases over 2001 are forecasted for San Diego in the total number of visitors, hotel room nights, and visitor spending.
Total visitors, which includes day and overnight, is projected to reach 27.03 million, up 2.4 percent from 2001.
Hotel room nights are projected to hit 12.9 million, up 2.4 percent from 2001, although hotel occupancy will remain relatively flat 70 percent, due to a slight increase in hotel inventory.
Visitor spending is projected to total $5.31 billion for the region, up 3.7 percent over 2001.
For the 2002 forecast including key indicators, set your browser on www.sandiego.org/2002forecast.asp
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Elvis: A tribute to the King of Rock & Roll,” will be the theme for 2002 San Diego County Fair.
The announcement was made yesterday (Tuesday) during the fairgrounds’ monthly board of director’s meeting.
Jan. 8 would have been Elvis Presley’s 67th birthday.
Each year, the fair builds its entertainment line-up around a new theme in an effort to keep the event exciting for visitors.
“The hardest thing about an annual event is to convince the public that they want to come back every year,” says Chana Mannen, the exhibit department manager for the Del Mar Fairgrounds. “Our staff has developed the concept of an annual theme to make each fair unique and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fairgoers. Last year, the theme was ‘the Endless Summer’ and the exhibits, entertainment, and marketing revolved around this theme.
“This year, we are pleased to announce that the theme of the 2002 San Diego County Fair is —Elvis, a Salute to the King of Rock and Roll,” Mannen continues. “Elvis and rock and roll will be everywhere at the Fair.”
Plans are for the parking lot gates at the main entrance of the Fairgrounds to be decorated to mimic the gates of Graceland, and the main pedestrian entrance to the Fair will feature a giant 45 record and an image of Elvis.
The Activity Center will house a huge exhibit about Elvis Presley and his music. Guests will see and hear Elvis on TV, at concerts, and in the movies.
The exhibit will include many items from Graceland’s Elvis Presley collection including, motorcycles, a Mercedes limo, golf carts, the red velvet living room furniture from Graceland, clothing, awards, and even billboards.
A number of meet-and-greet opportunities are being planned, where fair guests will be able to meet and talk with people who were part of Elvis’ life.
The Grandstand and other stages will feature Elvis related entertainment and the Paddock Drive-In will feature a different Elvis film at 9 p.m.
The 2002 San Diego County Fair is the only fair to ever be officially sanctioned by Elvis Presley Enterprises.
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On Jan. 14, the Olympic Torch Relay will travel portions of its route through more than 11 miles of streets within the city of San Diego encompassing the communities of Downtown, Old Town, Mission Hills, Hillcrest, Balboa Park and Little Italy.
It will travel in a specially designed "cauldron truck," and will be hand-carried through the remainder of the route by more than 60 torchbearers who were selected through a local nomination process in mid-2001.
The more than 60 San Diegans who were selected to serve as torchbearers are part of the 11,500 Torchbearers who will carry the Olympic Flame more than 13,500 miles across the United States in 65 days as it travels through 46 states.
The San Diegans were nominated by family members, friends and colleagues who wrote a 50 to 100-word essay explaining how the nominee embodied the Olympic Spirit and provided inspiration to others and to their community
Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong will serve as the final Torchbearer for the day and will carry the Olympic Flame into an End of Day Community Celebration at Embarcadero Park South, directly behind the San Diego Convention Center.
The free celebration will feature a number of activities including live entertainment and a video wall along with interactive activities provided by Olympic sponsors. Music will be provided by the Navy Band Southwest.
The celebration will take place from 4 to 6:30 p.m., with the arrival of the Olympic Flame anticipated to be at 5:55 p.m.
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Leap Wireless International Inc. ended fiscal 2001 with 1.119 million Cricket customers, meeting the company’s guidance of at least 1.1 million customers for its unique brand of wireless service.
Leap offers Cricket, its unlimited local wireless service, in 39 markets in 20 states stretching from New York to California.
Leap grew its customer base by 54 percent in the fourth quarter, up from more than 724,000 customers as of Sept. 30. Net additions were more than 394,000 — an all-time high for the company.
"Despite an uncertain economy, the demand for the Cricket service and its value and predictability has remained strong,” says Harvey White, the company’s chairman and CEO. “We think Cricket service and its customer growth both this quarter and this year prove that our innovative, value-focused business model succeeds in adding customers more quickly than almost anyone else in the wireless industry. We are proud of accomplishing the five-fold increase in our customer base while successfully expanding our business on a national scale during the year. We look forward to moving ahead with our plans to launch our 40th market — Buffalo, N.Y. — in the first quarter of this year and expect to end 2002 with approximately two million Cricket customers."
Susan G. Swenson, Leap's president and chief operating officer, credits the company’s experienced management for the 2001 successes.
"In addition to operating our existing markets, our team launched 29 new markets in a single year with 14 of them being launched in the fourth quarter — a true accomplishment,” Swenson says. “With nearly 1,800 employees, our team ended the year with 27 switches and approximately 2,200 cell sites, 100 Cricket retail locations and 5,000 indirect retail locations across the country. As our company continues to fully transition from launch to operational mode, we look forward to continuing to grow our business prudently and cost-effectively as we deliver innovative, affordable wireless services to the mass consumer market."
Leap expects to report other results and to provide guidance for 2002 during its fourth quarter conference call on Feb. 11.
Headquartered in San Diego, Leap is a customer-focused company providing innovative communications services for the mass market. Leap pioneered the Cricket Comfortable Wireless service that lets customers make all their local calls from within their local calling area and receive calls from anywhere for one low, flat rate. Leap has begun offering new services designed to further transform wireless communications for consumers.
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Qualcomm Inc. is congratulating China United Telecommunications Corp., China's second-largest state-owned telecommunications company, on the launch of its cdmaOne system.
China Unicom started commenced CDMA services at a formal ceremony on Jan. 8.
"We congratulate Unicom on a smooth and successful start of commercial operations nationwide, with the extensive deployment accomplished in a very short time," says Irwin Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm. "This launch represents a major advance in Chinese telecommunications and positions China Unicom at the forefront of wireless communications. China Unicom's customers will immediately benefit from the many advantages of CDMA, including improved voice quality, dependable network access and call completion through increased network capacity and advanced data services. Looking forward, customers will enjoy an early and smooth migration to next-generation products and services."
China Unicom is the second leading telecommunications carrier in the market with about 30 million subscribers.
China's population totals 1.3 billion with an average of 24.4 wireline and wireless phones per 100 people. China Unicom will be providing CDMA services to more than 350 cities, penetrating up to 75 percent of China's total population.
In July of 2001, Qualcomm opened a CDMA Development Center to provide training, support and equipment testing services to manufacturers and mobile carriers in China, and to support research and development of third-generation CDMA wireless standards.
To date, Qualcomm has signed royalty-bearing CDMA license agreements with several Chinese manufacturers and continues to work closely with manufacturers to position them for entry into CDMA manufacturing.
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IDEC Pharmaceuticals Corp. has received the Complete Review Letter today from the U.S. FDA for the company’s biologic license application for the cancer drug Zevalin.
As earlier announced, the company expected to receive the letter in order for the FDA to meet its six-month review target suggested in the Prescription Drug User Fee Act.
The letter confirms that the company’s investigational agent Zevalin is approvable pending resolution of certain manufacturing compliance issues at the company’s fill/finish provider, and that no additional clinical data are required. In addition, the letter stated that all labeling issues have been resolved.
Zevalin is a monoclonal antibody linked to the radioisotope Yttrium-90, which targets the CD20 antigen on the surface of mature B cells and B-cell tumors, inducing cellular damage in the target and neighboring cells.
Zevalin will be used to treat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the fifth most common type of cancer diagnosed in the United States.
For reasons that include the aging of the U.S. population, incidence of NHL has increased over the past 20 years. It is estimated that 300,000 people are living with NHL in the United States.
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Ensemble Communications Inc., a San Diego-based equipment supplier in the broadband wireless access market, has closed $25 million in additional equity financing.
Led by new investor Ampersand Ventures, the funding round also included significant capital contributions by Enterprise Partners, Crescendo Ventures, Trinity Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, KTB Ventures and other existing Ensemble investors.
"This funding positions Ensemble to continue to exceed customers' expectations in the widespread deployment of our market-leading Fiberless product," says Dave Twyver, chairman and CEO of Ensemble. "We are delighted to have attracted a major new investor in Ampersand Ventures, a firm with a proven track record in communications investments. We are also especially pleased to have retained the confidence of our existing investors in this difficult telecommunications market. With this financing, the company’s business plan is fully funded through expected profitability later this year."
Proceeds from the financing will be used for continued engineering, sales and support activities associated with Ensemble's Fiberless broadband wireless access products, which have now been deployed in commercial service by carriers in North America, Europe and Asia.
Ensemble designs, manufactures and markets point-to-multipoint systems for broadband wireless access markets worldwide. Headquartered in San Diego, the company has offices in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.
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San Diego-based Aradiant Corp. says that its Servistream product will provide the Internet and catalog customers of gifts.com, a Reader’s Digest company, with customer care and sales support.
Through its Web site — www.gifts.com — and catalogs under the Good Catalog brand name, gifts.com helps consumers find gifts that are unique, surprising and a delight to open.
Rated the No. 1 gift web site by eMarketer, gifts.com offers 2,000 products.
Aradiant’s customer service representatives, known as iGuides, will support gifts.com by answering order-taking phone calls that originate from both the web site and its catalogs. Aradiant iGuides will be available to gifts.com’s customers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
"This is a fantastic opportunity to provide our high level of customer care to a leading e-commerce organization, and we look forward to a long-lasting partnership," says Linda G. Noda Hobbs, president of Aradiant.
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Equus Realty Advisors says that the 44,013 square foot office building at 2131 Faraday Ave. in Carlsbad has been sold to a private investor for $5.45 million, a 10.3 percent cap rate on existing income.
The seller of the property was Equus 2131 LLC, with David Bourne and Chad Carpenter as the managers.
Mark Emerick, Dennis Visser and Louay Alsadek of BRE Commercial/NAI represented the seller. Ron Reynolds of CA Commercial represented the buyer.
The single-story building was constructed in 1987 as the corporate headquarters of International Lottery and Totalizer Systems Inc. (ILTS), a supplier of computerized ticket processing systems.
In August 1999 ILTS subcontracted most of its assembly work to outsource suppliers and negotiated a reduction in its leased space to 22,791 square feet as part of a 5-year lease extension. This allowed Equus to reconfigure the property into a two-tenant office building and complete a capital improvements program, including a separate front entrance and separate metering for the vacant space.
In October 1999, Chicago-based Technology Solutions signed a 63-month lease for 19,222 square feet, taking occupancy to 100 percent.
"We knew that the leasing market was stronger in the 20,000 square foot range than in the 40,000 square foot range, so subdividing and upgrading the building made a lot of sense" says Chad Carpenter, president of Equus Realty Advisors.
Equus purchased the property in December 1996 for $2.95 million, with $2.2 million of secured debt provided by Walnut Creek based Owens Financial Group.
Equus says its Equus 2131 investors received a return of more than 100 percent over 5 years.
"Our target is to earn investors in excess of 20 percent per year, so this investment was reasonably successful," Carpenter says. “The sales price and return to investors would have been far higher if the leasing and investment market in Carlsbad had been stronger."
Equus Realty Advisors is a La Jolla- based commercial real estate advisory firm. Founded in 1993, Equus has more than 25 private investors and institutional partners and lenders.
To date, Equus has acquired 21 properties and sold nine.
For more information, copy www.equus-realty.com into your Web browser.
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San Diego-based Musicmatch Inc. and Philips Electronics have formed a partnership that will bring an Internet music service to the new Philips broadband home system.
Musicmatch Radio MX, the industry's first near music-on-demand streaming subscription service (the term “near” is used because a 100 percent on-demand music service would violate a licensing agreement with the RIAA), will be available through the Philips Streamium MC-i 200 broadband Internet audio system, and other Philips consumer electronic products enabled to receive audio streams over the Internet or other networks.
The Philips Streamium MC-i 200, scheduled to be available this summer, is a micro hi-fi system capable of receiving multiple online music services.
"Musicmatch and Philips share a long-term strategy to deliver high-quality, high-speed digital music to consumers, and this first step is an exciting start to our relationship," says Dennis Mudd, CEO of Musicmatch Inc. "Our Radio MX service has seen tremendous growth and support from consumers and partners, as evidenced by nearly 80,000 subscribers and partner adoption to take Radio MX beyond the PC."
"By offering leading online music services with our consumer electronics devices, Philips is able to deliver an entirely new dimension in home audio entertainment," says Jean-Marc Matteini, g.m., Philips Internet Audio. "With Musicmatch Radio MX, our customers have the opportunity to experience personalized, high-quality music throughout the home."
Philips selected Musicmatch Radio MX for the service's quality programming and overall performance. Radio MX will be available on the Philips Streamium MC-i 200 with a 30-day free trial.
Using Musicmatch Jukebox, music fans can create personalized stations and access them via the Philips device. For $4.95 per month, music fans will hear ad-free, CD-quality, customized streams.
Fans can create personalized stations based on one or more favorite artists — which include music from entered artists as well as similar artists — regardless of genre, customize the playback for a personal experience, produce customized playlists, like era stations, to play top hits from a particular year or time frame, see the upcoming artist, and skip past songs that don’t suit the mood.
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San Diego-based Kyocera Wireless Corp. has introduced a full-size portable folding keyboard for the Kyocera QCP 6035 smartphone. The keyboard will sell for $99 on the Kyocera Wireless Corp. Accessory Store Web site, with availability expected by the end of the first quarter of 2002.
The Kyocera Smartphone Portable Keyboard folds for instant mobility, yet expands to a 100 percent full-size keyboard for quick text entry to create and respond to email, type memos, forms, reports and more.
Developed in partnership with Carlsbad-headquartered Think Outside Inc., the keyboard provides the same size, feel and response as the best notebook computer keyboards.
When folded, the keyboard fits easily in a pocket, backpack or briefcase. The keyboard can be used while making voice calls. Programmable shortcut and command keys also allow users to customize keyboard functionality.
The minimal amount of power needed for the keyboard to operate — less than using standard Palm Graffiti for text entry — is provided by the smartphone itself.
"Traveling light and working on the go are now easier than ever with the Kyocera Smartphone Portable Keyboard," says Stan Scheufler, corporate v.p. for marketing and product management at Kyocera Wireless Corp. "We listened to our many customers who told us that a keyboard is the one accessory that will allow them to leave their laptops at home and rely solely on the QCP 6035 smartphone to stay in touch while on the road."
The Kyocera QCP 6035 smartphone is a code division multiple access digital wireless handset that combines the power of a Palm OS-based organizer with voice communications, text messaging, wireless e-mail and Internet access.
With the Palm OS v.3.5 and 8MB of memory, the Kyocera QCP 6035 smartphone supports thousands of applications written for the Palm OS platform. The Kyocera QCP 6035 smartphone supports HTML browsers with secure socket layer encryption to provide security for confidential data, making the smartphone a robust platform for enterprise applications.
"Think Outside worked with Kyocera to adapt our Stowaway Portable Keyboard to the Kyocera smartphone," says George Gerwe, v.p. of sales of Think Outside. "As more than one and a half million people worldwide have already discovered, the Stowaway keyboard transforms a handheld into an even more powerful device that can perform many of the functions traditionally done using laptops — but with far greater mobility and a lot less hassle. Now Kyocera smartphone users can enjoy the freedom and flexibility the keyboard provides."
Closed, the Kyocera Smartphone Portable Keyboard measures 3.6 inches by 5.1 inches by 0.8 inches. Open, the keyboard measures 13.8 inches by 5.1 inches by 0.44 inches. Weight of the full-size, standard-layout keyboard is approximately 7.9 ounces.
A phone stand with an integrated interface cable connects the QCP 6035 smartphone to the keyboard and weighs approximately 3.2 ounces. A neoprene case is included with the keyboard and cable stand.
The keyboard software is loaded onto the QCP 6035 smartphone via infrared beaming or HotSync from a personal computer. Minimum computer system requirements to load the keyboard software are the Microsoft Windows 9x, Windows 2000 or Windows NT operating systems, or Mac OS 7.53 or higher.
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Even after adding its first new speculative space in 11 years, Mission Valley reports the lowest office vacancy rate of all major San Diego County submarkets.
The area’s 7.9 percent vacancy rate compares to an overall countywide rate of 10.7 percent as of Sept. 30 and to a countywide average office vacancy rate of 9.6 percent during the five-year period beginning in 1996, the year the real estate recovery began.
“Even with the completion of the 190,000-square-foot Rio San Diego Plaza, Mission Valley’s office vacancy rate is holding steady in the low single-digit range,” says Patrick Rohan, a senior vice president with Burnham Real Estate Services. “In recent years, most of the county’s tenant activity has occurred in the tech-dominated suburban markets like Sorrento Mesa, Del Mar Heights and North University City (UTC) — all of which have seen record-setting new construction since 1996. Mission Valley, on the other hand, has not had any spec construction since 1990 when Hazard Center and Mission City were completed. As a result, tenants looking for Class A space with large floor plates have had to look to other suburban markets where plenty of build-to-suit and spec options were available.”
Demand for space in this centrally-located submarket is evidenced by the fact that Rio San Diego Plaza was 60 percent preleased upon completion. Tenants occupying the first 110,000 square feet of space in the project relocated from all areas of the county.
Rohan says Mission Valley’s rising popularity was evidenced back in 2000, when the county of San Diego consolidated operations from all over the region into a 265,000-square-foot facility in H.G. Fenton Co.’s Mission Valley Heights.
Titan Systems followed, consolidating from Sorrento Mesa.
“Mission Valley has always been desirable because of its central location,” says Jim Laing, also a senior vice president Burnham Real Estate Services. “Space that has become available has re-leased quickly, particularly by service-oriented firms who like the fact that the valley is intersected by all major freeways and has a vast array of retail and entertainment amenities in place."
Rohan notes that Mission Valley’s service-oriented tenant mix is another reason why the submarket is performing so well when other areas are seeing negative absorption as firms postpone or contract their expansion plans in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedy and Nasdaq turbulence.
“Mission Valley has never been a dot.com or technology hub, and this has insulated it from some of the uncertainty we’ve been witnessing in other markets,” says Rohan. “Its diverse mix of accounting, insurance, government, financial, and other business consulting firms means that, as a market, Mission Valley is poised to withstand specific industry-related downfalls.”
While Mission Valley hasn’t seen much in the way of new office construction until recently, it has seen the addition of several thousand new apartment units and condominiums.
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