Mar. 3--Jack DeBoer is at it again. 

Despite a near drought of capital for new hotels, the longtime Wichita hotel entrepreneur recently unveiled a new prototype for his fourth hotel chain. 

This month he opened a $2 million expansion and redesign of his Cambridge Suites hotel at 711 S. Main St. The redesign is to serve as the model for Cambridge Suites extended-stay hotels nationwide. 

Cambridge Suites hotels are aimed slightly above DeBoer's better-known Candlewood Suites concept. The Cambridge suites rooms are a little pricier -- $99 a night for a studio and $109 for a one-bedroom in Wichita -- and have more amenities. 

He renovated the hotel on South Main -- which he built in 1975 as a Residence Inn -- into a Cambridge Suites hotel in 1998 for $1.5 million. 

His salesmen have the names of the owners of the more than 100 first-generation Residence Inns, many of which DeBoer himself built 15-25 years ago. But there are plenty of other hotels that are 20 to 30 years old that need renovating, he said. 

DeBoer hopes owners will be interested in becoming Cambridge Suites franchisees. 

"Some say the industry is overbuilt," he said, with a laugh. "I say it's under-demolished." 

Now, DeBoer has built an addition -- three eight-unit buildings and a new lobby-clubhouse -- as the prototype for Cambridge Suites hotels. 

Like Candlewood, the Cambridge chain is aimed at business travelers who stay in town several days or weeks. The rates drop after seven nights and maid service also drops from daily to once a week. 

The new rooms are large, ranging from 350 square feet for a studio to 575 square feet for a one-bedroom unit. They have 9-foot-high ceilings, oversized executive desks, kitchenettes, VCRs, an extra phone line to accommodate computers, ironing boards and laundry baskets. 

The hotel is built as eight-room pods rather than a single building with a long hallway. It features a free washer and dryer, free made-to-order hot breakfast, free video library, a pantry where food and drinks are paid for on the honor system, a small gym and a swimming pool. 

DeBoer doesn't want the expense of a national reservation system, so he created a Web site, www.candlewoodsuites.com. Both Candlewood and Cambridge hotel rooms can be booked through the site. He also guarantees a room to customers who book 24 hours in advance on the Web site. He does this by increasing the quoted price when the number of vacant rooms drops, and even redirecting some non-Web booking guests to other hotels. He said they were offering rooms in Salt Lake City during the Olympics for $1,000 a night. 

"We've applied for a patent on the system," he said. "It really works." 

The hotel at 711 S. Main St. was DeBoer's first. He built it in 1975 as the first Residence Inn extended-stay hotel. He franchised the hotel concept and the chain spread rapidly. He sold the company to Marriott in 1987, but he kept ownership of the hotel on South Main. 

He co-founded the Summerfield Suites chain in 1988 and sold out of that in 1995. 

In 1995, DeBoer started Candlewood Suites. There are now 102 Candlewood Suites hotels, 80 of which are owned by the corporation. 

Besides owning most of the chain's hotels, he makes money by selling the franchises and providing training for staff of franchisees. 

The company had revenues of $162.5 million over the past four quarters, ending Sept 30, although it reported a profit in only one of the past four quarters. 

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(c) 2002, The Wichita Eagle, Kan. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. CNDL,