The move represents a significant change from the previously announced version of Dreamboat, which had been planned as a ground-up boutique hotel, wellness center, office and restaurant project roughly five blocks north at 2345 Kettner Boulevard. Instead, the Dreamboat name and hotel concept are now being shifted south to La Pensione at 606 West Date Street, where the property has already been closed for more than five months and construction has been underway for approximately four months.
And this does not appear to be a simple renovation of the existing hotel. Renderings reviewed by SanDiegoVille reveal an ambitious redesign of La Pensione's guest rooms, replacing the property's relatively understated accommodations with highly stylized interiors that appear to draw from Art Deco, retro-futurist and nautical design.
The proposed rooms are awash in glossy deep-green surfaces, warm wood-paneled walls and ceilings, brass and copper-toned detailing, rounded architectural forms and elaborate custom lighting. One rendering shows a bed surrounded by a dramatic green-and-metal headboard installation with a convex circular mirror resembling a ship's porthole and an ornate chandelier overhead, while another depicts extensive custom cabinetry, marble surfaces, geometric tile flooring, striped carpeting and circular windows incorporated into the doors.
Taken together, the renderings suggest Dreamboat will follow the immersive design philosophy CH Projects employed at The Lafayette and The Baby Grand rather than simply updating the former La Pensione rooms with new furniture and finishes. Even relatively utilitarian elements such as desks, vanities, cabinets and doors appear to have been incorporated into a cohesive custom design, giving the rooms an almost luxury ocean-liner or vintage railcar quality.
Outside, the transformation is already difficult to miss. Much of the Little Italy hotel is currently concealed behind black construction screening, with a massive CH Projects banner hanging over the work site and portions of the upper structure exposed as construction continues. The extent of the enclosure and visible work offers one of the clearest signs yet that the redevelopment of the longtime La Pensione property is well underway.
Taken together, the renderings suggest Dreamboat will follow the immersive design philosophy CH Projects employed at The Lafayette and The Baby Grand rather than simply updating the former La Pensione rooms with new furniture and finishes. Even relatively utilitarian elements such as desks, vanities, cabinets and doors appear to have been incorporated into a cohesive custom design, giving the rooms an almost luxury ocean-liner or vintage railcar quality.
Outside, the transformation is already difficult to miss. Much of the Little Italy hotel is currently concealed behind black construction screening, with a massive CH Projects banner hanging over the work site and portions of the upper structure exposed as construction continues. The extent of the enclosure and visible work offers one of the clearest signs yet that the redevelopment of the longtime La Pensione property is well underway.
When completed, the new Dreamboat Hotel is expected to feature fully renovated guest rooms and three separate onsite hospitality venues. Among the most notable will be CH Projects' take on Korean barbecue, adding yet another distinct culinary direction to a portfolio that already includes Persian, French, Italian, Mexican, seafood, steakhouse, tiki and Japanese-inspired concepts.
Another venue is planned as a cocktail lounge being developed in partnership with a well-known New York City bar group. The identity of that partner has not yet been made public, while details concerning the third food-and-beverage concept remain under wraps.
Another venue is planned as a cocktail lounge being developed in partnership with a well-known New York City bar group. The identity of that partner has not yet been made public, while details concerning the third food-and-beverage concept remain under wraps.
The project is operating on an approximately 19-month construction timeline. Based on the current schedule, the earliest realistic opening would be toward the end of 2027, although a 2028 debut appears more likely given the scale of the redevelopment.
La Pensione has occupied the prominent corner of India and Date streets in Little Italy for decades. CH Projects founder Arsalun Tafazoli purchased the 67-room, European-style boutique hotel for nearly $18 million in 2021.
Built in 1991, the approximately 25,000-square-foot hotel was previously a relatively straightforward boutique lodging property with limited hospitality programming beyond its guest rooms and street-level commercial spaces. The redevelopment into Dreamboat appears poised to radically expand that formula, transforming both the accommodations and the food-and-beverage offerings into something much more closely aligned with CH Projects' increasingly elaborate approach to hotel development.
CH Projects has increasingly made hotels one of the central focuses of its business after spending more than a decade establishing itself as one of San Diego's most influential restaurant and bar operators.
Tafazoli founded what was then known as Consortium Holdings in 2007 with the opening of Neighborhood in the East Village. Over the following years, the company developed a collection of some of San Diego's best-known hospitality concepts, including Craft & Commerce, False Idol, Ironside Fish & Oyster, Born & Raised, Raised By Wolves, Morning Glory, Seneca, Part Time Lover and Leila. That restaurant and nightlife empire eventually laid the groundwork for a much larger move into hotels.
In 2021, Tafazoli purchased North Park's historic Lafayette Hotel for approximately $25.8 million before undertaking a roughly $31 million transformation of the property. The resulting redevelopment introduced elaborately redesigned guest rooms, restaurants and cocktail bars, a restored bowling alley, swimming pool, live music venue and other amenities throughout the property. The Lafayette quickly became one of the most celebrated hotel projects in San Diego, earning Esquire's Hotel of the Year recognition in 2024 before receiving a Michelin Key in 2025.
More recently, CH Projects completed The Baby Grand in Coronado, another years-in-the-making hotel redevelopment that transformed the former La Avenida Inn into an immersive 31-room boutique hotel. That project, which opened this past May following an approximately $18 million overhaul, includes Night Hawk restaurant, hidden Champagne and oyster bar Fallen Empire and extensively redesigned guest rooms created in collaboration with Brooklyn-based Post Company.
Dreamboat now appears positioned to become the next evolution of that hotel strategy. The newly revealed room designs suggest the name may be reflected in more than simply the branding, with nautical cues appearing throughout interiors that evoke elements of a fantastical vintage ocean liner without resorting to overt maritime theming.
La Pensione has occupied the prominent corner of India and Date streets in Little Italy for decades. CH Projects founder Arsalun Tafazoli purchased the 67-room, European-style boutique hotel for nearly $18 million in 2021.
Built in 1991, the approximately 25,000-square-foot hotel was previously a relatively straightforward boutique lodging property with limited hospitality programming beyond its guest rooms and street-level commercial spaces. The redevelopment into Dreamboat appears poised to radically expand that formula, transforming both the accommodations and the food-and-beverage offerings into something much more closely aligned with CH Projects' increasingly elaborate approach to hotel development.
CH Projects has increasingly made hotels one of the central focuses of its business after spending more than a decade establishing itself as one of San Diego's most influential restaurant and bar operators.
Tafazoli founded what was then known as Consortium Holdings in 2007 with the opening of Neighborhood in the East Village. Over the following years, the company developed a collection of some of San Diego's best-known hospitality concepts, including Craft & Commerce, False Idol, Ironside Fish & Oyster, Born & Raised, Raised By Wolves, Morning Glory, Seneca, Part Time Lover and Leila. That restaurant and nightlife empire eventually laid the groundwork for a much larger move into hotels.
In 2021, Tafazoli purchased North Park's historic Lafayette Hotel for approximately $25.8 million before undertaking a roughly $31 million transformation of the property. The resulting redevelopment introduced elaborately redesigned guest rooms, restaurants and cocktail bars, a restored bowling alley, swimming pool, live music venue and other amenities throughout the property. The Lafayette quickly became one of the most celebrated hotel projects in San Diego, earning Esquire's Hotel of the Year recognition in 2024 before receiving a Michelin Key in 2025.
More recently, CH Projects completed The Baby Grand in Coronado, another years-in-the-making hotel redevelopment that transformed the former La Avenida Inn into an immersive 31-room boutique hotel. That project, which opened this past May following an approximately $18 million overhaul, includes Night Hawk restaurant, hidden Champagne and oyster bar Fallen Empire and extensively redesigned guest rooms created in collaboration with Brooklyn-based Post Company.
Dreamboat now appears positioned to become the next evolution of that hotel strategy. The newly revealed room designs suggest the name may be reflected in more than simply the branding, with nautical cues appearing throughout interiors that evoke elements of a fantastical vintage ocean liner without resorting to overt maritime theming.
Unlike The Lafayette and Baby Grand, however, the Dreamboat project has had a particularly complicated path to construction. CH Projects had previously planned to build Dreamboat from the ground up on a collection of properties at 2345 Kettner Boulevard and surrounding parcels at the northern end of Little Italy. Under Tafazoli's Inside Voice LLC, the company acquired six properties around Kettner Boulevard, Juniper Street and India Street for approximately $13 million. The proposed development was expected to include a roughly 60-room hotel, 6,700-square-foot wellness center, rooftop garden lounge, two restaurants totaling approximately 6,800 square feet, underground parking, office space and the company's headquarters.
The project encountered complications because the property sits beneath the flight path for San Diego International Airport. The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority initially opposed the development over airport land-use compatibility concerns before the matter moved through the city approval process. At the time, Dreamboat was positioned as what would have been CH Projects' first ground-up hotel development. That is no longer the plan.
Instead, CH Projects is moving the Dreamboat concept to the La Pensione property and intends to pursue something different at the Kettner Boulevard site. What eventually replaces the previously announced hotel, wellness center and restaurant development there has not yet been disclosed, leaving another potentially significant CH Projects project waiting in the wings. The relocation may ultimately allow Dreamboat to become operational considerably sooner than the ground-up Kettner Boulevard project would have.
La Pensione already provides CH Projects with an existing 67-room hotel structure at one of Little Italy's most prominent intersections, surrounded by restaurants, cafes and the neighborhood's heavily traveled pedestrian core. The redevelopment also places Dreamboat amid one of the densest concentrations of CH Projects concepts in San Diego.
Born & Raised sits on India Street, Morning Glory overlooks Piazza della Famiglia, and Ironside Fish & Oyster is just a few blocks south. Underbelly is down the street, while Craft & Commerce and its hidden tiki bar False Idol are also part of the neighborhood. Farther south along the downtown waterfront, Seneca and members-only The Reading Club occupy the upper reaches of the InterContinental San Diego, with sweeping views over the bay. Adding a major CH Projects hotel to that cluster would further cement Little Italy as one of the company's primary hospitality districts.
The planned Korean barbecue restaurant may also prove to be one of Dreamboat's biggest draws. CH Projects has developed a reputation for taking recognizable restaurant categories and rebuilding them around highly theatrical design, distinctive service and an immersive sense of place rather than simply reproducing traditional versions of those concepts.
At Leila in North Park, the company created an immersive Persian and Middle Eastern restaurant. At Quixote inside The Lafayette Hotel, elements salvaged from a decommissioned Mexican church were reassembled into a dark, theatrical setting for Oaxacan-inspired cooking. Fortunate Son was conceived as a celebration of American Chinese cuisine, while Underbelly is the company's interpretation of a Japanese ramen-ya. In Little Italy, Born & Raised transformed the classic American steakhouse into an extravagant 10,000-square-foot hotspot with a rooftop dining space. And Morning Glory turned breakfast into one of CH Projects' most theatrical productions, wrapping its Little Italy dining room in an eclectic mix of 1980s influences, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired details, sculpted booths and its unmistakable giant pink floral light fixture. Exactly what that same maximalist philosophy will look like when applied to Korean barbecue has not yet been revealed.
The project encountered complications because the property sits beneath the flight path for San Diego International Airport. The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority initially opposed the development over airport land-use compatibility concerns before the matter moved through the city approval process. At the time, Dreamboat was positioned as what would have been CH Projects' first ground-up hotel development. That is no longer the plan.
Instead, CH Projects is moving the Dreamboat concept to the La Pensione property and intends to pursue something different at the Kettner Boulevard site. What eventually replaces the previously announced hotel, wellness center and restaurant development there has not yet been disclosed, leaving another potentially significant CH Projects project waiting in the wings. The relocation may ultimately allow Dreamboat to become operational considerably sooner than the ground-up Kettner Boulevard project would have.
La Pensione already provides CH Projects with an existing 67-room hotel structure at one of Little Italy's most prominent intersections, surrounded by restaurants, cafes and the neighborhood's heavily traveled pedestrian core. The redevelopment also places Dreamboat amid one of the densest concentrations of CH Projects concepts in San Diego.
Born & Raised sits on India Street, Morning Glory overlooks Piazza della Famiglia, and Ironside Fish & Oyster is just a few blocks south. Underbelly is down the street, while Craft & Commerce and its hidden tiki bar False Idol are also part of the neighborhood. Farther south along the downtown waterfront, Seneca and members-only The Reading Club occupy the upper reaches of the InterContinental San Diego, with sweeping views over the bay. Adding a major CH Projects hotel to that cluster would further cement Little Italy as one of the company's primary hospitality districts.
The planned Korean barbecue restaurant may also prove to be one of Dreamboat's biggest draws. CH Projects has developed a reputation for taking recognizable restaurant categories and rebuilding them around highly theatrical design, distinctive service and an immersive sense of place rather than simply reproducing traditional versions of those concepts.
At Leila in North Park, the company created an immersive Persian and Middle Eastern restaurant. At Quixote inside The Lafayette Hotel, elements salvaged from a decommissioned Mexican church were reassembled into a dark, theatrical setting for Oaxacan-inspired cooking. Fortunate Son was conceived as a celebration of American Chinese cuisine, while Underbelly is the company's interpretation of a Japanese ramen-ya. In Little Italy, Born & Raised transformed the classic American steakhouse into an extravagant 10,000-square-foot hotspot with a rooftop dining space. And Morning Glory turned breakfast into one of CH Projects' most theatrical productions, wrapping its Little Italy dining room in an eclectic mix of 1980s influences, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired details, sculpted booths and its unmistakable giant pink floral light fixture. Exactly what that same maximalist philosophy will look like when applied to Korean barbecue has not yet been revealed.
The planned New York partnership could be equally noteworthy. CH Projects has increasingly developed relationships with influential hospitality and design talent outside San Diego, most notably through its repeated collaboration with New York-based Post Company on The Lafayette and The Baby Grand. The company expected to partner on Dreamboat's cocktail lounge has not yet been identified, but additional details are anticipated as the project progresses.
For now, much of Dreamboat remains literally hidden from public view behind the black construction wrap enveloping La Pensione. The newly surfaced guest-room renderings, however, provide the first real glimpse at what is taking shape inside, and they suggest CH Projects is preparing another dramatic reinvention rather than merely renovating an existing Little Italy hotel.
Dreamboat Hotel is being developed at the former La Pensione Hotel at 606 West Date Street in San Diego's Little Italy. An opening is currently anticipated no earlier than late 2027, with 2028 appearing more likely.
For more information, visit ch-projects.com.
Originally published on September 7, 2026.