You'll recall how the Fairmont Hotel wants to take that semi-ugly tower at the corner of Stockton and California and build a new condo tower, demolishing the famed Tonga Room in the process? Well, now Mayor Ed Lee is rallying some support for the developers, who got stymied last fall by the Planning Commission who weren't satisfied with their Environmental Impact Report, or something, and who therefore missed their deadline for getting Planning's approval for the project.

As the Ex reports, the Fairmont's hotel business has kind of sucked of late, with "most of the hotel business [having] migrated south of Market Street near the convention center," and they'd really like to get into the condo business. But the Planning Commission split 3-3 on the approval, scuttled the development plans, and Supervisor David Chiu is still concerned that giving the green light to this will just mean 300 fewer hotel jobs. Ed is trying to bring everyone back to the negotiation table, and one of the Fairmont owners, Bill Oberndorf, an SF resident, says, "I wouldn’t spend this amount of time anywhere else," and calls this affair "a Civics project."

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