Developer Wants to Build Smaller Hotel

Three months after city planners approved a 211-room hotel for Ventura Boulevard, the developer has decided to significantly scale back the project.

Extended Stay America, a Florida-based company that caters to businesspeople and other travelers seeking lodging for weeks at a time, had planned to construct two buildings on a long-vacant parcel of land across the street from Taft High School. The Los Angeles City Planning Commission approved the proposal in September.

The company now intends to build a single building with approximately 146 hotel rooms, said Michael Gallen, the Extended Stay project manager. The plan also replaced an underground parking structure with surface parking.

The changes come amid a cooling market for hotel development in Southern California. Extended Stay and other big hotel chains began pulling out of land purchases and scaling back development plans this fall as the national economy slowed, hotel stocks plummeted and financing dried up.

“We have less capital available to build our projects,” Gallen said. “We’ve downsized the project in order to better use the funds we have available.”

Extended Stay has not yet filed an application for the revised project, which would require a new public hearing and approval from the Planning Commission, said Daniel O’Donnell, a planning commission hearing examiner.

The company has discussed the proposed change with the head of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, a group that supported the original plan.

“I would have rather they had stayed with that plan, because it had underground parking,” said Gordon Murley, president of the homeowners group. “But at least they’re working with us and not saying, ‘Tough, this is what you’re going to get.’ ”