Coconuts, Golden Shovels Herald Calif. Hotels

[Guest guest]

VICTORVILLE, Calif. (Mar. 18) - Mayor Terry Caldwell pounding

coconuts on rocks in the noonday sun on St. Patrick's Day?

 

It wasn't Hibernian mischief, but part of a traditional Indian

consecration of new property. The Chhatrala Group, which owns the

Comfort Suites and 25 other hotels, was breaking ground on two major

hotels and a convention center south of Bear Valley road just east

of Interstate 15.

 

The ceremony was a delightful amalgam of the Chhatrala and Patel

families' US citizenship and Indian heritage -- golden shovels from

Desert Community Bank to break ground, and coconuts, incense, rice

and prayers to Umiya Devi Mata, the patron goddess of Maripura

Village, Surat City, in Gujarat, the easternmost state of India

where the families are from. Chhatrala Group has an office there, as

it does in San Diego.

 

"Indian-Americans operate 60 percent of the hotels in the US," said

Shailesh "Sonny" Patel, one of the principals of Chhatrala

Group. "Indians first came to the US in the 1960s to study, and some

of them stayed and sent for their families. Those who weren't

professionals looked around for businesses that needed skills that

they had, and they wound up running small hotels. From there they

gradually worked their way up to bigger hotels."

 

Hemant Chhatrala, the first to arrive in the US, and his brothers

the Patels were no exception. At one time, according to Sonny, they

owned seven small hotels in the Victor Valley. They have sold the

smaller operations -- "to friends, of course," Patel said -- and

will operate three larger hotels here and 22 hotels elsewhere.

 

Chhatrala Group is a multi-brand operator, operating different

brands of hotels using franchise agreements. Their new hotel at

12603 Mariposa Road, at Cottonwood Street next to Scandia amusement

park, will be a Hilton Garden Inn -- Hilton has nine different

brands of hotels in its 2,100-hotel chain.

 

Hilton Garden Inn is considered "upscale mid-priced" and will offer

a 24-hour business center, fitness center, wired and wireless

Internet access and remote printing for laptop users. Business

travelers are the target market, because adjacent to the hotel will

be a 12,000 square foot convention center that Patel believes will

be the largest in the High Desert.

 

Just east of the company's Comfort Suites Hotel at 14786 Monarch St.

will be a Hotel Extended Studio to be built on land bought from the

Victor Valley Museum. Extended stay hotels are designed

for "corporate professionals and families relocating to the High

Desert area," said Raj Patel, another principal in the company.

 

Each of the 60 units will have a plasma television, full kitchen,

living room, dining room and bedroom, and the hotel will offer a

fitness center, Internet hookups, sauna and swimming pool.

 

Jack Moseley of Riverside, the general contractor for both hotels,

said that the Chhatrala Group is assertive about remodeling its

holdings much sooner than most in the industry.

 

Mayor Caldwell, visions of new jobs and sales tax dancing in his

head as he smashed coconuts on rocks, splashing himself in the

process, said it was the first time in 32 years of public service

that he had broken ground for two projects by the same owner on the

same day.

 

Breaking the coconuts and burying them with rice and flowers on the

construction site is a symbolic rite, Sonny Patel said. "We must

feed the coconut and rice to Mother Earth if we expect her to feed

us," he explained. "The color red in the flowers -- in India we use

the kanku flower -- symbolizes prosperity." After the second

groundbreaking, Chhatrala Group offered lunch. One serving cart

offered Tandoori chicken, rice, nan, Indian-style fried vegetables

and curries; the other had pizza and Cokes.

 

Source: "Coconuts, Golden Shovels Herald Victorville, Calif.,

Hotels, Convention Center" by Larry Rand, from The Miami Herald,

reprinted from the Ventura County Star, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune

Business News. Posted on Thu, Mar. 18, 2004.

URL:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/8220116.htm