Tehachapi News

High-end Marriott takes shape

larger view

Hoteliers Chuck and Kay Yoo will open their third hotel in a row on Tehachapi Boulevard with the May, 2009 debut of their 56,000-square-foot Fairfield Inn and Suites by Marriott.

The $12 million project is rising rapidly from the earth in the heart of the city as steel framing beams now reveal the shape of the first floor.

“I’m really proud,” Chuck Yoo said. “They all said it would be impossible to build a Marriott. For one year I was negotiating with Marriott. We argued together. This is a top hotel. This is a different kind of franchise.”

The Yoos own two Best Western franchises on Tehachapi Boulevard to the east of the emerging Marriott  – the Mountain Inn, which they bought in 1982 and enlarged, and the Country Park Hotel, which they built in 2003 and opened in 2004.

The Yoos are counting on capturing the increasing business traffic that is descending on the city, much of it generated by the burgeoning wind energy industry, the presence of railroad workers and employees connected with the expanding California Correctional Institution.

“Tehachapi is not any longer a small town,” Chuck Yoo said. “Tehachapi is a very fast-growing community. Why lose the business to Bakersfield? They can come up here and spend more money.”

Chuck Yoo said they had planned to build a four-story, 60,000-square-foot Marriott complete with a Japanese restaurant, but Tehachapi city planners insisted they trim it down to three stories and 56,000 square feet. The Yoos had to jettison the restaurant as a consequence.

“They said to keep the country style,” Chuck Yoo said. “They said ‘We don’t want that [four stories], no high-rises.’”

The Fairfield Inn and Suites will have 82 units – 67 suites and 15 regular rooms – and will feature 26 balconies to capture the mountain views, an indoor pool, a courtyard suitable for meetings and concerts complete with a barbeque, a 1,100-square-foot lobby with a fireplace, a 1,200-square foot continental breakfast room, a 36-person meeting room, a fitness room, high ceilings and two televisions in every suite, including a flat 32”-high-definition unit.

“The concept is very special,” Chuck Yoo said.

They will staff the hotel with 30 employees.

 Tom McCormack, project superintendent for general contractors Wallace & Smith of Bakersfield, is happy with the progress of the job and said all the parties involved are working well together.

“This city is great to work with,” McCormack said. “There is coordination and continuity. Everybody doing this is a team – the city, the owners, the company.”
He said the city called for a “more homey atmosphere” in rejecting a fourth floor on the hotel.

“We look forward to the next project we can do with the city,” McCormack said. “We like the small town atmosphere.”
John Knopf is assistant supervisor for Wallace & Smith and Ed Felicidario is the project manager.

Wallace & Smith, which specializes in commercial projects, recently finished a Hampton Inn in Bakersfield.

According to Tony Plaza, job foreman for framers Grant Construction of Bakersfield, the first floor will be enclosed by walls by the end of week.

Now that the big beams are visible, the site is attracting attention of passersby. McCormack said people stop frequently to ask what is being built and to express their support.

The Yoos, who originally are from South Korea, have lived in Tehachapi almost 27 years. Their son, Philip, 25, is a 2001 graduate of Tehachapi High School. He earned a double degree at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in Latin American studies and global economics and is leaving soon to begin law school at Michigan State University in East Lansing. He spent two years in Seattle working as a political organizer.