Inn Face-Lift Has Wrinkle
Vibrations from the drilling and hammering at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa are reverberating throughout the city -- bringing both good and bad news.
In the short term, the $68-million renovation will cut the income of both the resort and the city. But in time, the city’s tax base, employment figures and prestige stand to benefit.
To offset expected decreases, the Ojai City Council last month adopted a lean $5.2-million budget for 2003-04 that takes $750,000 from reserves, eliminates the three-person General Services Administration Department and reduces contributions to civic organizations, said City Manager Dan Singer.
“There are a lot of projects and priorities that we would have been working on that we will have to postpone,” he said.
The inn’s bed tax, which totaled $1.3 million last year, usually provides about 20% of the city’s income. Cutting back from 207 to 61 rooms during the massive renovation means the inn will likely pay $650,000 less this year, Singer said. Add to that the estimated $120,000 in lost sales-tax revenue from inn guests who dine and shop in town, and it’s a big loss to city coffers.
But with the additional taxes the resort will pay after the expansion is completed in mid- to late 2004, Ojai should be able to refill its reserves and repay the inn about $500,000 in city planning costs in three years. In just the first 12 months, the inn expects to pay $2.2 million in bed taxes. The inn also estimates it will hire 65 more workers than it had before renovations began and draw 20,000 additional guests a year.
“In the end, it will be very positive for the community,” Singer said.
The project, which Singer said is the most expensive in city history, started in May but just recently became visible as workers began framing future rooms alongside the golf course. The resort, owned by Chicago-based Henry Crown & Co., will add 95 rooms.
All existing rooms will be gutted and redone to include crown molding, hand-made and hand-painted bath fixtures and high-speed Internet access. Exteriors will be altered to give the buildings a more uniform Spanish Colonial style. Two restaurants will be added and conference space will nearly triple.
Even though the inn already is a draw for Hollywood stars, such as Jennifer Aniston and Anthony Hopkins, the inn’s management wants to improve its image. Managing Director Thad Hyland would be pleased to boost the inn’s AAA rating from four diamonds to the coveted five, but he said the main goal is to make the 80-year-old resort viable for another eight decades.
“We’re building a blue blazer, something that will never go out of style,” Hyland said.
What’s good for the inn, built by Edward D. Libbey in 1923 as a private golf course, is good for the town, Singer said.
“Ojai would have to reinvent itself if the inn shut down,” he said.
In a city that consistently ranks third-lowest in Ventura County in household income, the hotel provides a level of funding Ojai would not have otherwise, Singer said, but taxes are just the beginning.
Tourism is a clean industry and the golf course, gardens and open space covering 97% of the resort’s property enhance the area’s beauty. With 590 employees before the renovation, the resort already employs nearly three times more workers than any other entity in the community, Singer said.
The inn and its owners are probably the biggest donors to the Ojai Valley’s nonprofits, Singer said. The list includes Help of Ojai, Ojai Center for the Arts and the Ojai Valley Museum & Historical Society.
The inn and the Arie and Ida Crown Memorial Foundation have given well over $100,000 to the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy over the last four years and have contributed additional funds to campaigns to purchase open space, said Jim Engel, the conservancy’s executive director. An inn executive serves on the conservancy’s board and the resort hosts its events.
“I think the nonprofit community depends on the inn,” Engel said.
While the city needs the inn to make money, the inn needs the city to remain a desirable destination, Hyland said. Ojai’s open space, thriving arts community and other events help draw visitors.
The owners could have built an equally nice resort on the beach for less than $65 million, but the Crown family likes the inn and its location and the resort markets the area as part of what sets it apart from other destinations, Hyland said. The inn displays local art, serves locally grown fruit and offers spa treatments, such as flower facials and citrus-honey body wraps, that incorporate Ojai’s bounty.
“Ojai is pretty darn unique, let’s face it,” Hyland said. “This location: There’s nothing like it anywhere in California.”
In an effort to help preserve the area’s beauty, the inn provides van pools for employees, uses natural gas and electric vehicles and participates in an extensive recycling program.
Without being asked, management included extensive conservation measures in its renovation plan, ranging from building a co-generation facility to produce electricity from natural gas to parking lot “bioswales” that organically remove motor oil so it doesn’t wash into streams. Although 110 trees will be cut down for the project, 430 new ones will be planted.
The inn is also trying to preserve jobs. While managers laid off 240 workers during the renovation, they retrained 95 waitresses, room service attendants and other employees to do carpentry, electrical work and landscaping so they wouldn’t lose their jobs. That will cost at least $1 million more than just rehiring employees after the renovation, Hyland estimates.
Because of these efforts and widespread appreciation for what the inn does for the city, the renovation plans received city approval with hardly a word of opposition, an amazing feat in a community so passionately anti-development that plans to cut down a single oak tree prompt protests and vigils.
“We do it voluntarily, not because they told us to.... We’re part of the town.... We’re woven in,” Hyland said. “The inn and the town: It’s a symbiotic relationship.”
