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By Mike Allen
January 19, 2026 (Santee) -- Santee’s newest hotel came in handy for a few local families who needed a temporary home because their regular abode sustained serious damage.
“One guest stayed for two weeks because their house flooded, and another stayed three weeks because their house caught fire,” said Jesse Duenas, general manager of the Woodspring Suites on Mission Gorge Road near the confluence of SRs 52 and125 that officially opened before New Year’s Day.
Those types of guests aren’t the norm for an extended stay hotel like Woodspring, a division of Choice Hotels, which caters mainly to business travelers. While most leisure guests may stay an average of two or three nights, some business guests need accommodation for a week, or two, says Duenas, who has been in the hospitality line for 15 years.
Extended stay hotels have kitchenettes with stovetop burners, refrigerators, microwave oven, and work tables, geared to business folks who may be working on short term projects. Duenas said he’s currently hosting some construction workers and some Macy employees who are doing inventory work.
The city’s newest hotel is also its biggest with 122 rooms, more than its other three hotels, Best Western Lodge, Carlton Oaks Lodge, and the Roadway Inn. The rooms have about 300 square feet, and come with large screen TVs, Wi-Fi, but no swimming pool or jacuzzi. The place has an exercise room and a laundry room open around the clock.
Approved by the Santee City Council in 2019, the hotel ran into some glitches due to heavy rains and other delays that caused construction to take about three years.
As it neared completion last year, folks looking for rooms for relatives visiting for the holidays made inquiries and were told not yet. When it finally opened, the first day there were10 reservations, Duenas said. The hotel is now 40 percent occupied which is far above the company’s expectations, he said.
Driving future bookings will be the continued growth of Santee and adjacent East County communities including El Cajon and La Mesa, as well as the city of San Diego, Duenas said. The leisure market is also growing, and the city’s chief tourist attraction, Santee Lakes, is close, he noted.
Photo, right: Jesse Duenas, general manager of Woodspring Suites hotel
Santee Lakes, the recreation facility owned and operated by the Padre Dam Municipal Water District, draws some 650,000 visitors annually. Sportsplex USA, the ball field and sports complex near Trolley Square attracts about 475,000 visitors, according to Santee’s most recent financial report.
For baseball tournaments held at Sportsplex in recent years, many teams had to book rooms elsewhere because the local hotels were all full, according to city officials. The city actually approved another hotel at Trolley Square but the developers have yet to begin construction.
The building’s architecture will make Woodspring devotees happy as practically all the exteriors and interiors are cookie cutter replicants of each other, says Duenas, and that’s for a reason. “Almost all the Woodsprings look exactly the same,” he said. “When guests travel for work, and they have stayed at different Woodsprings, they know what to expect.”
While it’s the low season right now, Woodsprings is offering the lowest rates of all hotels within Santee, with a range between $69 to $99 a night, but extended stays will get you reduced rates. The website provides a monthly rate below $500. When summer rolls around, the rate will increase, of course.
For experienced extended stays guests, they’ll come with a few pots and pans, their coffee pot, and some cutlery. But if you don’t have those things, the front desk will be happy to sell it to you, Duenas said.
Just don’t look for a swimming pool, a fancy eatery, or a bar after putting in a long day at the job. But you can easily find whatever you’re looking for by driving a short way down the road, Duenas says. Santee has plenty of other attractions to offer.
For more information, visit https://www.woodspring.com/extended-stay-hotels/locations/california/santee.
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