2 Hotels Are Planned for Newbury Park

Hoping to profit from the growth of large companies along the Ventura Freeway corridor such as Amgen, Baxter BioScience and WellPoint Health Networks, a Conejo Valley developer is moving forward with plans to place two hotels for business travelers in Newbury Park.

Robert D. Selleck, president of Selleck Properties, intends to start razing the aging Newbury Park Center on Newbury Road at Giant Oaks Avenue by late this year and replace it with a $23-million project called The Terrace. The complex will include a restaurant, retail space, a 101-room Extended StayAmerica hotel and possibly a 120-room Courtyard by Marriott.

“What they’re really going after is the business client who is making extended trips,” the Westlake Village developer said. “There aren’t a lot of locations of this quality--right off the freeway and this close to expanding businesses.”

The hotels would be built by the companies themselves, while Selleck coordinates overall construction and erects a two-story, 32,000-square-foot retail building. The retail portion and at least one hotel could open by late 2003, he said.

Marriott’s 130-room Courtyard in Camarillo has meeting space, fax and copying services, and rooms with a work desk and two phones with dataports for computer hookups. Courtyard rates average $80 to $120. A Marriott spokesman said the Newbury Park site has not received final company approval, “but we’re looking forward to working with Mr. Selleck.”

Extended StayAmerica, with 50 hotels in the state, has rooms that include a full-size refrigerator, stove, microwave and a recliner. Although prices haven’t been set, rates at the company’s Woodland Hills hotel average $79 per night or $409 for the week.

Prospective customers, which use hotels such as Hyatt Westlake Plaza or Westlake Inn for visiting executives and workers, say the planned hotels should not lack for guests.

“It will fill a need that’s not being met,” said Jeff Richardson, a spokesman for Newbury Park-based Amgen, which had thousands of employees scattered throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Europe and Asia before it completed a nearly $15-billion acquisition of rival Immunex Inc. last week. “From time to time, we have difficulty even finding a hotel room, not to mention an extended-stay situation. Sometimes we’ve had to put people up as far away as Agoura Hills.”

After recently relocating its global headquarters to Westlake Village, Baxter BioScience--with offices in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland and Vienna--expects its visiting employees to patronize the hotels once they open, spokeswoman Tali Kaplan said.

And as WellPoint Health Networks, parent company of Blue Cross of California, becomes more of a national headquarters for its health plans in Georgia, Missouri and Texas, there is expected to be greater use of such lodging. “There will definitely be an increased need,” spokesman Ken Ferber said.

Newbury Park is an excellent location for the hotels, said Alan X. Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality Group, a Costa Mesa-based hotel broker and consulting firm. Reay said most hotels built last year in California carry either the Marriott or Hilton marquee and that Extended StayAmerica has become the nation’s fastest-growing chain of limited-service hotels for budget-conscious travelers.

The Terrace’s hotels will be on the south half of the nearly 10-acre property and shielded from freeway traffic by the retail building, which Selleck said should have space to accommodate several of the center’s existing tenants.

Pauline Beck, whose family owns Newbury Park Meat Market, said the market has become a local landmark after three decades and hopes to stay at the center after the much-needed renovation.

“The center needs help,” Beck said, “there’s no getting around that.”