A large crowd gathered Thursday afternoon to celebrate the grand opening of the Woodspring Inn & Suites – now the tallest commercial building in Ceres.
The Ceres Chamber of Commerce hosted the ribbon cutting ceremony with food catered by local restaurants inside the lobby, music outside provided by a DJ, and tours of the facility.
The hotel, located along Highway 99 inside the Ceres Gateway Center, opened May 30 and has already seen a steady stream of guests. General Manager Kate Anderson reported that some weekend have sold out all 122 rooms while weekdays has seen 50 percent occupancy.
“We’re very busy on the weekends,” said Anderson.
The hotel surveys guests to find out the nature of their visits and are finding that a lot of travelers are staying in Ceres for work reasons.
“A lot of construction working, traveling nurses, truck drivers,” said Anderson. “On the weekends it’s more leisure, visiting family, concerts.”
She estimated the average stay is four to five days since Woodspring is an extended stay hotel. Of course, one night or shorter stays are also seen.
Some who stay have a destination of Yosemite National Park.
Room rates charged at the hotel are considerably lower than what others charge with $100 a night being average. She explained it’s because the hotel doesn’t offer breakfast nor does it have no pool or hot tub. It does, however, have a small fitness room and coin and credit card operated laundry room for guests’ convenience.
“We do have kitchens in the rooms but we don’t have the dishes for the kitchen,” said Anderson. “You have to buy them or you can go to Walmart or something.”
The hotel is also in close proximity to Starbucks and other fast food places in the center and across the street from Farmer Boys which offers traditional breakfasts.
“The guests love that. They just walk out the door and there’s food everywhere.”
The rooms – which are equipped with double, queen or king beds, are basic with laminate flooring and not much in the way of frills. The kitchens include electric stove top, sink, refrigerator, microwave oven and cabinets.
Security cameras throughout the hotel and exterior are monitored and Ceres Police often keep an eye on things in the center, said Anderson.
“It’s a pretty safe area,” commented Anderson.
She has heard some guests complain of freeway noise which is why the hotel prefers to place guests in rooms facing east away from the freeway.
The new hotel is independently owned by WS California Ceres, LLC and managed by Hotel Management & Consulting, Inc. under a franchise of Choice Hotels International, Inc.
Another Woodspring will be opening next year in Manteca but most of the chain is located in Southern California, with two in Bakersfield, and hotels in Indio, Colton, Corona, Coachella Valley, Los Angeles and Moreno Valley.
The chain was founded as Value Place in 2003 but rebranded to Woodspring in April 2015. The chain offers normal and extended stays.
Woodspring is the third hotel in Ceres but the largest at 50,800 square feet and taller than the three-story Microtel Inn. Ceres’ oldest motel, the Howard Johnson Inn, is comprised of a single-story motel with one standalone building of two stories.
The Woodspring project almost wasn’t approved by the city in September 2022. Knowing that Woodspring would only build only a four-story hotel of 50 feet high, the Ceres City Council was unwilling at first to amend zoning regulations that capped building height of 35 feet for buildings in the Regional Commercial, or RC zone. Woodspring said they would abandon the Ceres site without being allowed going four stories high at 50 feet.
The city council decided to change the building height limit to 50 feet after Councilman Mike Kline abandoned his objections after it was demonstrated that the hotel would not block the freeway view of the nearby Walmart Supercenter. Kline then cast the crucial flip vote that pathed the path for the project.
