Omni hotel to 'fly a kite in a hurricane'.(Omni San Francisco reopening in different economic environment)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)

It promises to be-a chilly, winter for Omni San Francisco, scheduled to open Feb. 1 as the city's latest luxury hotel in a market already awash with empty, expensive rooms.

The Omni is finishing up a $100 million renovation to painstakingly convert a 17-story office building into a period-inspired luxury hotel in the financial district. It is being restored to its 1926 state under the direction of Patri Merker Architects in a project that began in February 2000 during the height of the economic boom. It is subsequently poised to open in a radically different climate -- a fact that does not go unnoticed by industry sources.

"Omni is about to go fly a kite in a …