It will take nearly five years to completely renovate the 27-year-old San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina. The $200 million renovation and upgrade started in 2009 with the elevators and will finish in 2014 when meeting space is complete.

“When we finish this we’ll have touched almost every inch of the hotel,” says Ray Warren, area general manager for Marriott’s San Diego properties and general manager for the newly branded Marquis. The hotel is the fourth worldwide branded Marriott Marquis.

The size and upgrades have earned the 1,360-room hotel the “Marquis” moniker, as did its location. “The brand is for major mega-convention hotels in gateway cities with iconic buildings,” says Warren.

The work, and subsequent rebranding, was done to make the hotel competitive with meeting venues around the country. “It was really important to reposition the hotel as things change around the country,” says Warren. “As the world changes, groups are requiring more meeting space to do exhibits.”

To meet that need the hotel is expanding to 160,000 square feet of meeting space, including two supersized 40,000-square-foot ballrooms. The ballrooms will have the latest in lighting, sound and WiFi to handle any major presentation.

Guestrooms were redesigned to appear more spacious with, what Warren calls, a cool, coastal California sensibility. “What that means,” he says, “is we took the outdoors in. The colors are the blues, golds and corals you’ll find in the sea.”

King rooms, which are 50 percent of the inventory, now have walk-in showers.

The Marquis had an advantage over most renovation projects. It was completely shut down for three weeks during the 2010 Christmas holidays. “It’s slow that time of year, and we knew the renovation would be unpleasant for guests,” says Warren. Looking back, he says, “It was the most critical thing we did because it gave us a jump start. We probably had 22 jackhammers going at one time. We were able to get a huge jump start on the noisiest, most obnoxious part of the construction and not impact the guests.”

During that time workers were busy around the clock taking care of the most visible areas — entrance, lobby, pool. Shutdown logistics were, of course, a challenge. “We had been in planning mode for that for six months,” he explains. “Employees knew in summer that we’d be closed down. A few would continue working, like security and engineering. The majority knew they wouldn’t work. They could save their vacation time or take other jobs at other Marriotts in town. Most declined [the jobs] and took their holiday time.”

In addition to the hotel, Warren has the somewhat unique responsibility for a 446-slip marina, attached to the hotel, which draws guests from around the world. It’s part country club, part hotel, with guests using full hotel amenities such as room service, housekeeping, pool, fitness center and restaurants. “I always say we have 446 rooms afloat,” he says. That would make the hotel a whopping 1,806-room property.