Local Firm Seeking to Sell Radisson Hotel

After only one year of ownership, a local real estate firm is offering to sell the Radisson Suite Hotel in Oxnard to a Delaware-based company.

Ventura Hospitality Partners is looking to sell the hotel--which is adjacent to the River Ridge Golf Course--to Sunstone Hotel Investors L.P. If the sale goes through, the hotel name may change.

The new owners will be required by March 1988 to complete several renovations that were part of a deal with the city when Ventura Hospitality Partners purchased the hotel.

Ventura Hospitality bought the 250-room hotel last year from Westland Co. of Ventura for $8.25 million. At the time, the hotel was on the brink of foreclosure because Westland Co. had defaulted on its remaining $19 million in mortgage payments. The city of Oxnard once owned the property and later sold it to Ventura Hospitality Partners. When the city was the landlord, city leaders counted on revenues from the hotel’s land lease to offset a $9-million bond they took out to finance the River Ridge Golf Course parking lot.

The city decided to partially invest in the hotel to lure golfers and the Los Angeles Raiders, who used the property as a summer training camp.

But the Raiders soon left Oxnard when the team transferred to Oakland. Although Oxnard receives more than $300,000 a year from the Radisson in bed and sales tax revenue, the deal turned out to be a big money loser for the city.