Manager says upgrades at Burbank Ramada push hotel ‘ahead of the curve’
The Ramada by Wyndham Burbank Airport — formerly the Ramada Inn — recently completed a nine-month renovation and rebranding in an effort to stay competitive with other hotels in the city.
The 142-room hotel at 2900 N. San Fernando Blvd. underwent several upgrades, including new furnishings, pedestal beds, updated bathroom tubs and fixtures, as well as new flooring, said Jeff Simons, general manager of the hotel on Tuesday.
He added that lighting fixtures, the hotel’s conference and meeting rooms and public areas were also upgraded.
The renovations to the rooms and other guest amenities were just part of the first phase of upgrades underway, Simons said.
The second phase, which is currently under construction, includes a revamp of the building’s exterior, additional lighting, resurfacing the parking lot, upgrading the wireless internet and installing larger televisions in the rooms.
“It wasn’t just about cleaning up the hotel,” Simons said. “Burbank is a competitive market, and there’s a lot of new hotels coming to the market, so the idea was to get our hotel as close to or exceed what the norm is right now. We want to be ahead of the curve.”
Simons has been the general manager of the Burbank Ramada for the past four years after a stint at the chain’s Anaheim location and was brought on board to oversee the upgrades.
Simons was also at the helm of the Burbank Ramada for a few years starting in 2006, and he said there is a night-and-day difference between what the hotel looked like before and after the renovations.
“So far, a lot of people have said that they love the new rooms,” Simons said. “We’ve also had people that have been coming here for years that were blown away with the upgrades.”
It’s the first time major upgrades were made to the Burbank hotel since it was converted into a Ramada Inn in 1983, Simons said.
He added that the renovations would have been completed a lot sooner had it not been for a water main breaking and flooding an area where the hotel’s transformers were housed.
Not only were upgrades being made to the rooms, but the building’s electrical infrastructure also had to be redone, Simons said.
Understanding that the Burbank Ramada isn’t going to be the flashiest hotel in the city, Simons said he is more than happy knowing that his hotel is a budget-friendly offering for families visiting Southern California.
“I hate to say that we’re an economy hotel, but people come here because of our rates and because it’s close to Hollywood, Universal Studios and the airport,” he said. “We realize that this is what we are.”
