Hotel deals pick up as investors anticipate a rebound.

THE deals may not be blockbusters, but investors are starting to ante up their bets for a turnaround in the hotel industry.

In the latest addition to his burgeoning hotel empire, major Budget Rent-a-Car franchisee Harry Wu has struck an estimated $13 million deal for the 134-room Holiday Inn Long Beach.

Wu's CCW Tri-Star Management LLP is under contract to buy the 10-year-old Holiday Inn on Atlantic Avenue, about two miles north of the coast, from a partnership of Houston-based Westmont Hospitality Group and Goldman Sachs Group, according to sources familiar with the deal. Wu did not return calls.

In May, CCW Tri-Star bought the 215-room Doubletree Club Hotel El Segundo-LAX and the 169-room Ramada Plaza LAX El Segundo from Credit Suisse First Boston for $22 million. Last week the company began a $2.5 million renovation of the Doubletree.

On the development front, Johnston Group is sticking its toe in the hotel waters in seeking county approval for construction of the 100-room Staybridge Suites by Holiday Inn on Agoura Road in an unincorporated section of the county. If approved, construction could be underway early next year.

The two-acre hotel site is adjacent to a seven-building, 325,000-square-foot office park built and managed by the Calabasas office park developer.

"The thought was it would help serve the area," said Steve Morse, Johnston Group's executive vice president. "We don't have any facilities like this around here."

Morse wouldn't say what the firm was spending to develop the hotel, although one industry analyst pegged it at about $7.5 million.

With the closest hotel to the site in Woodland Hills, Morse said the Holiday Inn should be able to capture weekday business travelers and, being only 12 minutes from Malibu, leisure travelers during the weekends.

Food Fight

After more than a decade bringing a bit of wholesome retail to the neighborhood, Hollywood Farmers Market may end up being a victim of its own success.

A spate of development is encroaching on its boundaries of Selma Avenue between Vine Street and Cahuenga Boulevard and Ivar Street between Hollywood and Sunset boulevards.

That has prompted Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles, the non-profit group that has operated the market for 13 years, to start a petition drive to halt any further squeeze.

Pompea Smith, the group's executive director, said it had collected more than 1,000 signatures on a petition asking 13th District City Councilman Eric Garcetti to intervene with developers whose projects could keep the market from closing off streets.

Residents of the first of those projects, Bond Capital Ltd.'s Sunset + Vine mixed-use project, now nearing completion, will use Selma to access the complex's underground parking garage.

Smith said an earlier developer had promised that the market could still use the section of Selma Avenue after the complex was finished, but now the city could prevent the market from using that block.

"I am not aware of any promises, quite frankly," said Larry Bond, president of Bond Capital. "I wasn't involved in this project from its start, so I don't know what happened historically."

Still, he acknowledged the lure of the market to his residents and said non-resident farmers market patrons would receive discounted parking at the project's garage.

"We'll have up to 600 people living at our project." he said. "That's a lot of potential customers who won't have to drive a car to get there."

Other encroaching projects include an apartment complex planned for a city-owned parking lot on Ivar behind the Doolittle Theater, now used by the market for free parking, Smith said. The project could also prevent the market from closing off parts of Ivar Street, Smith said.

Restaurant Swap

The Napa Valley Grill in Westwood Village and Cafe Del Rey in Marina del Rey are going British.

U.K. billionaire Joseph C. Lewis's Tavistock Group has entered into a deal to buy their Emeryville-based parent, Constellation Concepts Inc.

Hazim Ouf, Constellation's president and chief executive, initiated an aggressive stock buyback program in the late-1990s to take the company private, but the added debt proved too much and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sept. 9.

Lewis, worth an estimated $5 billion, has a long history with restaurants, according to the Mirror, a London tabloid. He grew up waiting tables in his father's East London restaurant and his son Charles owns several Hard Rock Cafes, according to the newspaper.

Staff reporter Andy Fixmer can be reached by phone at [phone], ext. 263, or by e-mail at [e-mail].