Garden Grove will let voters decide the Nickelodeon hotel: council votes 6–0 to call a $1 million special election for June 8, 2027

What's happening

Here is the question that will land in your mailbox next spring, as written in the resolution the council adopted on September 22: "Shall Ordinance No. 2977 approving PUD-141-01(A) zoning for Site B2 for a Nickelodeon Hotel Project proposal at the corner of Twintree Lane and Harbor Boulevard be adopted?" Yes or no.

How it got here: since 2022, Garden Grove has wanted a Nickelodeon-branded resort on city-owned land along Harbor Boulevard. Nickelodeon is Paramount's kids' channel, home of SpongeBob and Paw Patrol. The 500-room, 23-story hotel would rise at Harbor and Twintree, just south of the Sheraton, on a parcel the city calls Site B2.

On June 23, 2026, the council adopted Ordinance No. 2977, re-approving the zoning for the site (a planned unit development called PUD-141-01(A)) so the project could move ahead. Two days later, a referendum petition against that ordinance was filed with the City Clerk.

According to two memos from City Attorney Omar Sandoval, the petition carried 14,775 signatures. The Orange County Registrar of Voters examined 13,738 of them and found 9,700 valid. The legal threshold was 9,674 — 10 percent of Garden Grove's 96,746 registered voters. The petition cleared it by 26 signatures.

That triggers state election law: the ordinance is suspended, and the council must reconsider it. On Tuesday, September 22, 2026, items 11 and 20 on the agenda were the two steps of that reconsideration. The council took the second road: an election.

What happened on September 22: the council picks the ballot

Item 20 came up close to 10:30 p.m., after more than two hours of public comment, most of it about the GKN Aerospace plant. City Attorney Omar Sandoval kept his report short. The council had three roads: repeal the ordinance, send it to the next regular election, or call a special election. June 8, 2027, he said, is an available date that satisfies the Elections Code's 88-day rule.

Council Member Ariana Arestegui asked him to spell out the funding source for residents. The answer: the city must appropriate an additional $1 million from the General Fund to pay the Registrar. That is the Registrar's estimate. The city pays the actual cost; if it runs higher, staff will come back for more.

Mayor Pro Tem George Brietigam said he had opposed the creation of the Harbor Boulevard hotel district decades ago and "was wrong." The bed tax from those hotels, he said, is the city's most direct revenue source, paying for streets, parks and pools. He said he did not want to repeal the ordinance but to "let the people decide," and that he trusted voters not to follow the petition's side.

Arestegui said she supported the project when it first came before her on the Planning Commission. She noted it carries a project labor agreement, meaning union construction jobs. Spending $1 million on an election, she said, is something "none of us had on our bingo card at the beginning of the year," but it puts the choice about the city's revenue in residents' hands.

Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein pointed to the economic-impact presentation earlier in the evening, calling it "a pretty sobering reminder," and said the project has been in the works for a decade. Council Member Cindy Tran said she hoped residents would find accurate information before deciding either way.

Council Member Joe DoVinh said he felt "conflicted." He did not want to hand a $1 million liability to the next council. He said he was biased one way or the other, would not say which, and recused himself. The clerk recorded it as a recusal, not an abstention.

Council Member Phillip Nguyen moved to adopt the resolution calling the special election for Tuesday, June 8, 2027, together with the $1 million appropriation. The vote: six yes, with DoVinh recused. Earlier in the evening, on the consent calendar, the council had accepted the Registrar's certification of the signatures (item 11) with seven yes votes.

The same night, the council heard Oxford Economics present a report on a separate Unite Here Local 11 measure: the "Hotel Worker Benefits and Protection Initiative," filed as a notice of intent on June 17, 2026, which would set a hotel minimum wage and housekeeping workload limits. That initiative has not yet qualified for the ballot. According to the item 17 memo, the report was commissioned by the Garden Grove Tourism Promotion Corporation, the city's tourism marketing organization. The presenter, Erin Ryan, estimated that if the initiative became law, hotel room nights sold in Garden Grove would fall about 12 percent and bed-tax revenue about $1.3 million a year; the report includes a scenario in which the Nickelodeon hotel is not built. Brietigam said the bed tax now covers about 15 percent of the General Fund. This is a commissioned analysis, not an independent record; no one from the union presented a rebuttal that night.

During public comment, a representative of Kam Sang Company, the developer, said the company has worked on the project for ten years and is building it with union labor. He said the company had offered Unite Here Local 11 a path to a unionized hotel workforce within three to five years of opening, and the union declined. That is one side's account; no one from the union spoke on the item that night, and Bolsa Bridge has not yet reached it.

What the Nickelodeon hotel is

According to the city's environmental review, the project sits on 3.72 acres at the northwest corner of Harbor Boulevard and Twintree. Today the land is overflow parking for the Sheraton and a few vacant dirt pads. The hotel would top out at 350 feet, with 500 guest suites, a themed pool deck with a lazy river, a theater, a ballroom, restaurants, an arcade, a spa and a 528-space garage. Construction is estimated at about 30 months.

This has been in the works for more than two decades. The Orange County Tribune reports the first development agreement for the site dates to 2002. In 2022, Voice of OC identified the developer as Kam Sang Company, Nickelodeon's real estate partner, and reported that the site consists of six city-owned parcels that had been designated for higher-density housing.

In September 2022 the council approved the project the first time, through Ordinance 2938. Nine days later, the hotel workers' union Unite Here Local 11 and two individuals sued the city in Superior Court under CEQA, the state environmental law. The advocacy group VietRISE later joined the suit. The parties settled before trial. Under the settlement, if the city wanted to proceed it had to prepare a focused supplemental environmental study on traffic and greenhouse gases, then re-approve the project at a public meeting.

The city did those three things. The Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval on May 7, 2026. The council held its hearing June 9 and adopted Ordinance 2977 on June 23. The Orange County Tribune reported the vote as 7–0.

On money: in 2022 the city estimated the hotel would generate about $3.5 million a year in taxes, according to the Orange County Tribune. Most of that is transient occupancy tax, or TOT — the hotel bed tax that is one of Garden Grove's biggest revenue sources from the hotels along Harbor.

Referendum vs. initiative

A referendum is how voters block a law their council has already passed. An initiative is how voters propose a new law themselves. The two words get mixed up, but they run in opposite directions.

California Elections Code section 9237 sets the blocking rule. Within 30 days of a city adopting an ordinance, if a protest petition is signed by at least 10 percent of the city's voters, the ordinance is suspended and the council must reconsider it.

Section 9241 spells out what comes next. If the council does not repeal the ordinance entirely, it must submit it to voters — either at the next regular municipal election or at a special election, in both cases at least 88 days after the council's order. The ordinance takes effect only if a majority of those voting say yes. If voters reject it, or the council repeals it, the city cannot enact the same ordinance again for one year.

One thing that trips people up: in a referendum, the ballot asks whether to adopt the ordinance. A YES vote keeps Ordinance 2977 and lets the hotel proceed. A NO vote rejects it. Someone who signed the petition to stop the project would vote No.

Who's against, who's for

According to the Orange County Tribune on September 18, 2026, and a July 31 statement by the Orange County Business Council, the referendum petition was organized by Unite Here Local 11, the hotel workers' union that brought the 2022 CEQA lawsuit. The reason it gives, per the Tribune: the site would be better used for affordable housing. Back in 2022, the union's Bridget McConaughy asked the council why the city was not considering a housing proposal, or at least a housing component, on the site, Voice of OC reported. VietRISE, an Orange County organization led by young Vietnamese Americans, raised concerns about thin community outreach at the time; organizer Allison Vo told Voice of OC that an April 2022 neighborhood meeting drew 16 people.

On the other side is the city's own staff. The item 20 memo calls the hotel important to Garden Grove's "long-term development, employment and tax base," and on that basis recommends sending the ordinance to voters rather than repealing it. The Orange County Business Council, the county's business association, issued a statement on July 31, 2026, opposing the referendum effort. It pointed to years of review and estimated the project would bring the city $323.2 million over 30 years, plus hundreds of construction and hospitality jobs. That 30-year figure is higher than the $236.4 million the Orange County Tribune reported on June 24; this article does not reconcile the two, only notes each source.

The two options the council weighed

Option one: repeal Ordinance 2977. The project stops at the zoning stage. The city cannot re-adopt the ordinance for a year. No council member proposed this.

Option two: call a special election. This is the path the council took. Staff recommended Tuesday, June 8, 2027. The estimated cost is about $1 million, to be appropriated from the General Fund. It would be a stand-alone election on a single question, run by the Orange County Registrar of Voters at the city's request. The draft resolution also opens the door to arguments in the voter guide: the council, any eligible voter or any bona fide association may file an argument for or against, with up to five signers each. The City Attorney would write an impartial analysis of no more than 500 words.

Separate from election costs, the city has already paid $46,709.20 to the Registrar to verify signatures. Under an agreement between the two, the developer will reimburse half, $23,354.60, according to the item 11 memo. The council approved that item on the consent calendar, 7–0.

The law also allowed waiting for the next regular municipal election instead of a special one; no council member proposed that on September 22.

What this means for you

Harbor Boulevard is where Garden Grove looks for hotel taxes, money that pays for police, fire and streets citywide. A 500-room hotel would change the look of the Harbor–Twintree corner through years of construction, and change traffic through the area. Garden Grove residents and the business owners along Harbor are the ones who live with both.

Because the council called the election, every registered voter in Garden Grove will get a vote-by-mail ballot ahead of June 8, 2027, with one question on it. Orange County election materials are typically available in Vietnamese; Bolsa Bridge will confirm with the Registrar once it publishes the election calendar.

What voters can do now

• Election day: Tuesday, June 8, 2027, with a single question on the ballot. The Orange County Registrar of Voters runs it at the city's request; vote-by-mail ballots go to every registered voter in Garden Grove.
• Check your registration: ocvote.gov (available in Vietnamese) or call the Registrar at (714) 567-⁠7600. If you have moved or changed your name, update your registration first.
• Arguments for and against in the voter guide: under the resolution, the council, any eligible voter or any bona fide association may file one, with up to five signers each. The City Attorney will write an impartial analysis of no more than 500 words. Filing deadlines will be announced by the City Clerk.
• Agenda and resolution in Vietnamese: the city posts an official translation on agendasuite.org/iip/gardengrove.
• Records: Garden Grove City Clerk
  (714) 741-⁠5040

The final call now belongs to Garden Grove voters on June 8, 2027. For the Bolsa area, it is the first time a major Harbor Boulevard project reaches the ballot on the strength of residents' own signatures. That leaves more than eight months for both sides to make their case — and for you to read closely before marking Yes or No.

Bolsa Bridge does not endorse candidates or take positions on ballot measures. This article summarizes public records so you can decide for yourself.

Translation assisted by AI and reviewed by an editor.