CARLSBAD -- The owners of the Legoland California amusement park will seek permission Wednesday from the city's Planning Commission to put a 250-room, Lego-themed hotel on part of their parking lot.

"I think it's something people have asked about for a long time," park spokeswoman Beth Downing said Friday as she discussed the hotel, which is proposed to occupy the RV parking lot next to the main entrance.

One of the Legoland amusement parks in Europe already has its own hotel, and "kids love the themed rooms," Downing added.

Legoland California, which opened in 1999, occupies a roughly 128-acre parcel south of Cannon Road and north of Palomar Airport Road. Until 2005, the company that makes the children's plastic Lego building blocks owned it.

The park's new owner -- British-based Merlin Entertainment Group Inc. -- has added a second attraction at the amusement park site. The Sea Life Aquarium, which requires a separate admission ticket, opened last year.

With the aquarium and the proposed hotel, Legoland is striving to become "more than a one-day destination for families," Downing said Friday.

The hotel project will require both city and state Coastal Commission approval because it falls within the state's coastal review zone. Construction is expected to take two to three years, Downing said.

The proposed hotel won't be the only lodging facility within walking distance of the park. Two independently operated hotels, including the recently opened Sheraton Carlsbad resort, already exist just outside the park's gate.

The Sheraton, which will have 350 rooms once all phases of construction are completed, is part of a wave of new hotels in town. Recent city statistics indicate that Carlsbad now has 3,634 hotel rooms.

Some tourism industry watchers have recently said that there's already a glut on the local market, given the recent national economic downturn.

At Carlsbad Tourism Business Improvement District board meeting in December, several area hoteliers said their occupancy rates for November and December were likely to be lower than last year, adding that forecasts also weren't likely to be good for the coming year.

City officials have said the final 2008 hotel tax revenue figures should be available later this month or early next month.

Initial indications were that November occupancy rates were holding somewhat steady, but that city hotel tax revenue would be down, one city official said during the tourism board meeting. That indicates that hotel operators are still renting rooms, but at lower prices.

The Planning Commission meeting is set to start at 6 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, 1200 Carlsbad Village Drive. The commissioners will be asked to approve a series of things related to the project, including changing the amusement park's parking requirements.

The requirement is 94.5 spaces per acre of active theme park, while the proposed standard would be 80.08, a new city staff report indicates. The report notes that Carlsbad didn't have a parking standard for amusement parks until Legoland came along and created the 94.5-space standard based on what other communities had.

However, the report continues, Legoland's peak parking figure for 2007 showed that it could get by with a lower parking rate standard and still meet visitors' needs.

Plans call for the three-story hotel to include a 14,383-square-foot restaurant, 11,051-square-foot retail space, a 6,364-square-foot bar/lounge, an outdoor pool and a water play area. It's proposed to be built in two phases, with the first phase containing 175 hotel rooms.

To view the city staff report and other agenda information, visit: http://www.carlsbadca.gov/planning/pcvideo.html