THOUSAND OAKS : Japanese Investors Can Purchase Hotel

The Thousand Oaks Planning Commission decided Monday to allow owners of the Hyatt Westlake Plaza Hotel to sell the hotel’s 277 rooms as condominium units to investors in Japan.

Sky Court U.S.A. Inc., a subsidiary of the Japan-based Sky Court Co. Ltd., plans to market 277 condominium units--including 264 guest rooms, a restaurant, a bar and meeting rooms--to private investors, Assistant Planner Edwin Rinke said.

The commission voted 4 to 1 in favor of the proposal, with Shirley Carpenter opposing the measure. “I am very reluctant to complicate the ownership of a very significant building in town,” she said.

The investors would not live in the hotel, which is located at Westlake Boulevard and Townsgate Road, but would own a piece of the property.

“The hotel will continue to operate as a hotel,” Rinke said. “There won’t be any change in the operation or use. There’s not supposed to be any physical changes.” Sky Court will continue to manage the hotel until 2030, as it agreed to do when it bought the hotel from Hyatt Corp. last year, Rinke said.

For the Japanese investor who purchases a room, “it’s buying title to a little piece of real estate,” Sky Court spokesman Christopher Walt said. The investors will get the tax benefits of owning real estate without having to pay the high costs of buying land in Japan, he said. Each of the rooms would sell for more than $100,000, he said.

Rinke said Sky Court owns a hotel in Hawaii that has been subdivided into condominium units for investors.