Five down and four to go and the Ceres Gateway Center will be complete.
Construction crews are busy with the simultaneous construction of four new businesses in the Ceres Gateway Center at the southwest corner of Mitchell and Services roads which will not only expand shopping opportunities for local residents but also boost Ceres’ sales tax revenue.
Construction is underway on buildings that will become home to Popeye’s Chicken, Tractor Supply and Union 76 station. The largest of all projects in the shopping center will be a four-story Woodspring Inn & Suites hotel that will run parallel to Highway 99 as Ceres’ tallest building.
Early in 2022, the Ceres City Council amended the zoning regulations to allow construction of buildings taller than the existing 35-foot height limit on properties zoned Regional Commercial, or RC. The action allows a building of up to 50 feet to allow a four-story structure.
The foundation is being prepared for pouring on a 2.16-acre parcel for the extended stay hotel of 50,800 square feet consisting of 122 rooms and laundry facilities.
While Woodspring has nearly 300 hotels across the country, it is not well known in California where there are just seven locations. They are located in Bakersfield where there are two, and in Indio, Colton, Corona, Los Angeles and Moreno Valley. The chain was founded as Value Place in 2003 but rebranded to Woodspring in April 2015. The company website notes that: “Instead of booking on a nightly basis like a traditional hotel, our guests tend to book with us for a week, month, or longer. Since we have less turnover, we pass the savings on to you with weekly and monthly rates that cost less per night the longer you stay!”
Typically extended stay hotels offer kitchens, laundry vending services and gyms.
Woodspring will be the third hotel in Ceres. Mictrotel Inn & Suites and Howard Johnson Inn are located on the freeway frontage road.
Masonry block walls are up for the 21,702-square-foot Tractor Supply, garden center, outdoor display and forage shed. A total of 89 parking spaces are proposed along with landscaping.
Tractor Supply sells clothing and apparel, pet supplies, work boots and shoes, and farm and ranch supplies such as Ag fencing and gates, sprayers, tanks and pumps, tractor parts, livestock handling equipment, and ATV and UTV attachments. It does not, however, sell tractors.
The Ceres Gateway Center has been developed with an In-N-Out Burger, Starbucks, Chipotle, Ono Hawaiian BBQ and Quick Quack Car Wash.
Also under construction is a Popeye’s Chicken restaurant along Mitchell Road between Starbucks and the In-N-Out Burger. There is no word if the chain plans to keep its existing restaurant in Ceres at 1400 Hatch Road.
In September 2022 the Ceres Planning Commission approved a 4,549-square-foot 76 gas station and a convenience store building with a drive-thru operation to likely support a fast-food restaurant to be located within the secondary tenant space. Walls for the project are up just south of Starbucks at the entrance of the center on Mitchell Road.
“We don’t know which use will be in there but it will be a commercial use, probably some kind of food chain because they’ve got in their plans a drive-thru and the drive-thru will serve that secondary tenant space,” said Community Development Director Christopher Hoem.
