This Rest Stop Means Business : Highways: Project near Victorville will be the first in the nation built with private dollars near public roads.

SACRAMENTO — Just south of Victorville, on a barren 15-acre tract where U.S. 395 meets Interstate 15, developers are about to start a project with the looks of a trendy shopping center: Mediterranean style, red-tiled roofs, landscaped walkways and acres of parking.

This is California’s newest version of a highway rest stop.

On the blue-and-white signs posted as far as 100 miles away, it will be called a Travelers Service Rest Area, but it won’t be like any existing rest stop in California. A gas station, restaurant and a mini-market will serve travelers. A uniformed security guard will patrol the picnic area and call buttons everywhere will allow motorists to summon emergency help.

One other major difference: It won’t be built with highway dollars. This will be strictly private enterprise.

The first of its kind in the nation, it represents to California transportation officials the beginning of a trend toward privately operated rest areas and away from government-maintained facilities. For decades, states on the Eastern seaboard have had commercially run rest stops on turnpike toll roads, but California is the first to experiment with the idea next to public interstates or freeways.

Essentially it will work like this: Caltrans, after approving the location, will lease space for the rest areas to private entrepreneurs. They in turn will build the facilities including picnic areas, restrooms, parking and whatever commercial enterprises Caltrans has agreed to permit. In return for their right to earn a profit from the commercial ventures, the private business people will bear the responsibility for operating and maintaining the entire rest area, including the free restrooms and picnic area.

“We’re sort of on the cutting edge in this. We’re trying a new idea and there are no rules,” said Edward N. Kress, chief of the office of landscape architecture for the California Department of Transportation.

In 1985, the Legislature authorized Caltrans to build up to six new rest areas in partnership with private enterprise. Officials predict few if any rest stops financed solely with tax dollars will ever be built again in California.

“The point is, right now we are not going to have any new roadside areas unless we move in this direction because the money is not there,” said Bruce Nestande, vice chairman of the California Transportation Commission.

Transportation officials also are looking into the possibility of converting many existing rest stops to private enterprise. Likely candidates include the Randolph Collier rest stop on Interstate 5 near Yreka, the Phillip Raine rest stop on U.S. 99 near Kingsburg and north of Visalia, the Wiley’s Well rest area on Interstate 10 west of Blythe and one on Interstate 8 near Buckman Springs.

The move toward privately operated rest stops comes at a time when there is growing pressure, particularly from Republicans, for private participation in programs once considered the sole province of government. But the idea of privately operated rest stops does not seem to ignite the same political controversy that other proposals engender, such as plans for privately operated toll roads.

“I don’t have a problem as long as the facilities (restrooms and picnic areas) are open to the public for free, as long as they’re designed in a way that they fit into the surrounding countryside and as long as they don’t lead to wide-scale commercial development under the guise of creating a rest stop,” said Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar).

The original plans when rest stops were introduced to the state in the 1950s called for spacing them every 60 or so miles on freeways and interstates, but as gas tax revenues began lagging behind the state’s transportation needs, rest stops became early casualties of budget cutting.

The California Transportation Commission began pushing the idea of privately operated rest stops when budget shortages were so severe that it was doubtful that government would ever have the funds to build another. The last of the state’s 90 rest stops was built in the late 1970s.

“Rest areas are considered a low priority in the total scheme of transportation improvements,” said Kress.

Their initial moves in that direction ran into opposition from U.S. highway officials who cited federal laws prohibiting commercialization in interstate rights-of-way. So Caltrans decided that any rest stops operated by private interests either would serve state highways or, like the new Victorville facility, be located just outside the federal right of way.

It took Caltrans five years to find the right location and negotiate a contract. TSRA of California I, a Riverside-based partnership, beat out McDonald’s for the Victorville contract. The partnership includes a lawyer, an engineer, a contractor and restaurateur Ruben Villavicencio, owner of the Millie’s Country Kitchen chain.

“The state is going to get a better rest stop and they’re going to make some bucks in the process,” said Frank Delany, managing partner for TSRA.

TSRA has agreed to invest $5.3 million in the design and construction of the complex, pay the state a monthly rental fee and fork over a small percentage of the gross sales. For its part of the 35-year lease, the state provides the land and $500,000 for the preliminary engineering and the construction of access roads from the two highways to the rest stop.

Caltrans officials, who insist the new Victorville rest area never would have been built without private participation, expect the facility to open by January.

As they seek agreements for partnerships with private businesses to run other rest stops, Kress said Caltrans officials expect each might have to be uniquely fashioned to fit its location. Some may require more investment by Caltrans. Others in more remote areas where traffic isn’t as heavy might be able to support only a small operation. Some of the contracts might be with corporations and consortia; others might involve small local businesses.

So far, the main opposition to the idea has come from some local chambers of commerce that fear commercial enterprises at rest stops would take too much business away from hometown restaurants and gas stations. Indeed, the first site Caltrans selected for its experiment--next to Interstate 5 between Stockton and Sacramento--was abandoned because of opposition from businesses in San Joaquin County.

“There’s a lot of concern in small communities where there are existing rest stops that if you allow commercialization you’re going to take away their livelihood,” said Kress. “We’re trying to find a way in those areas to allow local participation.”