Daily Business Report-Nov. 4, 2015

The San Diego Airport Hilton

Bartell Hotels Takes Possession

Of San Diego Airport Hilton

Waterfront hotel purchased for $37.7 million

Bartell Hotels has added the San Diego Airport Hilton on Harbor Island to its lodgings collection — purchasing it for $37.7 million.

The acquisition brings the total Bartell Hotels inventory to eight properties in San Diego.

The seller, Square Mile Capital Management LLC, is a real estate investment firm based in New York.

The San Diego Airport Hilton is located along the waterfront and is less than amile away from San Diego International Airport. The hotel was extensively renovated in the early 2000s when the hotel became part of the Hilton Worldwide brand. The nine-story building features 211 guestrooms and nearly 9,000 square feet of meeting and banquet space.

Bartell Hotels plans for an additional $5 million in upgrades.

“The San Diego Airport Hilton is a great fit within our portfolio of waterfront hotels,” said Richard Bartell, president of Bartell Hotels. “This hotel is representative of the iconic San Diego experience and an important step in expanding our footprint in the region.”

Besides the San Diego Airport Hilton, Bartell Hotel properties include the Sheraton La Jolla, The Dana on Mission Bay, the Pacific Terrace Hotel, Holiday Inn Bayside, Days Inn in Mission Valley, Island Palms Hotel and Marina, and Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn & Suites.

All company-owned facilities, including three marinas and Humphreys Concerts by the Bay, are managed by Bartell Hotels.

JLL’s Hotels & Hospitality Group represented Square Mile in the transaction.

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San Diego Blood Bank Partners

With Illumina for Genomics Research

City News Service

The San Diego Blood Bank announced Tuesday that it’s working with Illumina Corp. and other organizations on a plan to allow donors to give blood that will be used in genomics research.

The blood bank will take an extra tube of blood from up to 100 pre-selected donors at Chargers Drive XXXVII on Nov. 24. That blood will be sequenced, with results presented to the participants at an event in March hosted by Illumina, the San Diego maker of genetics equipment.

The study is part of the Precision Medicine Initiative announced earlier this year by President Barack Obama.

Dawn Barry, vice president of applied genomics at Illumina, said a goal is to harness the nation’s blood banks as sources for recruiting volunteers and obtaining samples for large-scale genomics research.

While scientists can extract DNA from the samples, and conduct research on diseases like cancer and diabetes, participants can receive personal genetic profiles for use in their own health care.

“This collaboration demonstrates an innovative example of academia, industry, and not-for-profits coming together in the spirit of the PMI and to help drive its sustainability and success,” said David Wellis, blood bank CEO. “It is a practical strategy that reaches beyond traditional infrastructures and mitigates significant research challenges such as public trust, recruitment, and diversity during a ten-year plus study.”

Dr. Robert Green, a medical geneticist consulting to the project, said the San Diego Blood Bank has an established “informed consent and return of results process” that will allow it to collect samples for testing, and stay engaged with participants in studies.

Collaborators in the plan include Rady Children’s Hospital, UC San Diego Clinical and Translational Research Institute, medical schools at Baylor and Harvard universities and other organizations.

Council Gives Initial Approval

For Solar Panels on City Properties

City News Service

A plan to install solar power panels at 25 city-owned properties over the next 20 years was given unanimous initial approval Tuesday by the San Diego City Council. The sites will be used for nine rooftop solar systems and 19 parking lot canopy arrays.

Among the locations are seven police stations, four libraries, the City Administration Building and surrounding structures, and the parking lots at the Mission Trails Regional Park Visitors Center and Inspiration Point in Balboa Park.

Under terms of the proposed deal — a second reading by the City Council is required to finalize it — SunEdison Government Solutions LLC will install, operate, own and maintain the solar photovoltaic systems over two decades.

The city will buy the power supplied by the systems from SunEdison, replacing electricity that otherwise would have been purchased from San Diego Gas & Electric, which supports the plan.

City officials estimated the cost of purchasing power for the 25 facilities from SDG&E over the next 20 years will be $48 million, compared to a $26 million price tag for solar from SunEdison.

The total savings will be $22 million, ranging from a projected $500,000 in the first year of operation to more than $1.7 million annually by the end of the term, according to the staff report.

Google Confirms it Will Launch

A Drone Delivery Service in 2017

Brian Fung/Washington Post

www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/11/02/google-confirms-it-will-launch-a-drone-delivery-service-in-2017/

Even as companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon move ahead with drone delivery, Google has given a concrete date for when it plans to delivery packages by drone.

At a Washington conference Monday for air traffic controllers, Google executive Dave Vos told audience members that he hopes to field a commercial service by 2017. Google later confirmed Vos’s remarks, saying the service would use its Project Wing technology to deliver parcels, but the company declined to say where the deployment may occur.

Google has tested Project Wing in Australia, sending local farmers everything from a first aid kit to candy bars and dog treats.

In the United States, the company has also pushed for clear new rules for commercial drones. Vos envisions the private sector playing a role in setting up an air-traffic control system for drones, and he even serves as co-chair of a Department of Transportation task force to determine how hobbyists should register their drones with the government

 

Who’s the Enviest of Them All?

Research says young adults are

Young adults are more envious than older adults. They are more envious over looks and for a wider range of other reasons, too. It also appears that both men and women are more likely to envy someone who is approximately their own age, and of the same gender.

That’s according to a UC San Diego paper published in the journal Basid and Applied Social Psychology. The paper is coauthored by UC San Diego psychology professor Christine Harris and graduate student Nicole Henniger.

“Envy can be a powerful emotion,” Harris said. “Christian tradition even has it identified as one of the seven deadly sins. We wanted to investigate envy not only because it is subjectively experienced as negative but also because it has been suggested as motivation for a whole host of events — from fairy-tale murder to, in modern times, the force behind the Occupy Wall Street movement.”

The Henniger-Harris paper covers two studies: one that surveyed more than 900 people aged 18 to 80 on their own experiences of being envious and another that asked 800 more in the same age range to remember when they had been the targets of envy. Most of the subjects were American.

Previous studies of envy have focused on college students. Other studies, working with older adults, have hypothesized that this more experienced demographic may have better control of negative emotion in general. But none, write Harris and Henniger, had previously examined the effect of age on envy specifically.

For the full results of the study, click here.

 

‘Minidorms’ Prompt Outcry for New Laws

Frustrated residents near San Diego State and Councilwoman Marti Emerald say the city needs to crack down more aggressively on the rapid proliferation of “mini-dorms,” converted single-family homes known for late-night student parties and other disruptive behavior. The residents and Emerald lobbied the City Council on Tuesday to craft and adopt new legislation that goes beyond two laws approved in 2008 that critics have deemed mostly ineffective. San Diego Union-Tribune

 

Personnel Announcements

Bob Brewer Joins Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek

Robert S. Brewer has joine the law firm of Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek as of counsel.

Brewer’s practice focuses on a variety of civil litigation and white-collar defense matters including government investigations, fraud, business and commercial torts, health care and intellectual property disputes.

Prior to joining the firm, Brewer was a partner in the San Diego office of Jones Day. He also ran for San Diego County District Attorney in 2014.

Brewer gained significant trial experience as a prosecutor in Los Angeles, serving as a deputy district attorney and as an assistant U.S. Attorney, including assistant chief of the Criminal Division — prosecuting cases involving espionage, bank robberies, smuggling, narcotics, murder for hire and civil rights violations.

 

Mark Sheller Joins Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Mark Sheller has joined the Business Banking team of Bank of America Merrill Lynch as a vice president and relationship manager in San Diego.

Sheller will manage relationships with existing and new clients to help local mid-sized companies grow, improve cash flow, manage payments and invest for the future.

Sheller has nine years of business, commercial lending and relationship management experience. He has held positions at USE Credit Union and California Bank & Trust.

he holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wyoming.