It appears Starwood will now name the new hotel at M&F
Georgian Room on our mind
Plans to change
Saturday, April 15, 2006
DYLAN RIVERA
The Oregonian
Plans for the redevelopment of Portland's Meier & Frank building are going upscale.
Developer Sage Hospitality Resources said this week that it intends to build a swank $117 million hotel on the upper 10 floors of the downtown landmark. Luxury Collection, a brand owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., intends to bring four- or five-star opulence to a building that had not aged particularly well in recent decades.
The hotel's eighth-floor lobby, a main public access point, will feature a floor-to-ceiling piece of historic architecture treasured by generations of genteel Portland ladies: the Georgian Room, a dining room dating to the 1920s, which closed earlier this year. The restaurant won't reopen, but the historic room, relocated and re-created using original materials, will be accessible as part of the hotel's lobby and meeting rooms for guests.
The news about the Georgian Room's new location and the hotel's brand name were the latest twists in what promises to be one of the highest-profile redevelopment projects in the state.
Meier & Frank's longtime owner, May Department Stores Co., for years let the downtown store slide with outdated decor and vacant floor space, fomenting fears that it would eventually close or relocate. In 2004, Sage Hospitality stepped in, pledging to buy the top floors in a deal that would give the retailer enough cash to update and consolidate on the lower five.
The hotel developer has since hired Hoffman Construction Co. to punch a hole through the top eight floors, creating an atrium that will bring natural light to inward-facing rooms.
But many details, especially about the Georgian Room preservation, remain unanswered. The developers and their Portland-based architects and consultants still won't say how much of the Georgian Room's sea-foam green trim, heavy-curtained windows and hardwood floors dimpled by high-heeled shoes will be preserved in the new hotel lobby. They declined to make architectural renderings available this week.
Prioritizing preservation
James Hamrick, deputy state historic preservation officer, said Friday that state officials pushed for preservation and public access to the room. Even if it won't function as a restaurant anymore, and it will be relocated from the 10th floor to the eighth, visitors will be able to tell what the room once was, Hamrick said.
"The idea is it will look very similar, even though smaller scale, to what the Georgian Room looked like," Hamrick said. "It will look familiar to you if you were a Georgian Room aficionado."
Hamrick asked the National Park Service to make preservation of the room a condition of some tax credits. The developers are counting on about $15.5 million in historic preservation credits to help finance the project.
Hang-ups over the Georgian Room delayed construction from September 2005 to next month. Federal officials first suggested keeping the room on the 10th floor, Hamrick said, but that would have led to carving up the space into individual hotel rooms, accessible only to hotel guests.
Hamrick said the Park Service relented after state officials argued for a location that would provide more public access.
"To declare that it's important and then to close it off so that the public can't see it unless you're paying some high-roller rent for the suite, it just seemed not in the public interest," Hamrick said.
Federated Department Stores Inc., which bought May Department Stores Co. last year, will change the downtown store's name to Macy's by September. Macy's officials would not comment this week on the latest details of their plans for the store.
Overhaul of upper floors
Ken Geist, executive vice president of Sage Hospitality, said the company will work hard to keep the department store open, even while the upper floors undergo a major overhaul.
"This is a magnificent historic building, and we are looking forward to making it a focal point of downtown Portland once again," Geist said.
On April 3, Sage Hospitality closed on its purchase of floors six through 16.
The prospect of a Starwood brand hotel will be welcome news for travelers in that company's frequent customer program, said Ed Dundon, a hotel broker with The Dundon Co. in Portland.
"Hopefully it will be a product that will benefit all travelers in Portland in that it offers something unique and different to the traveling public," Dundon said. Competing Marriott and Hilton programs have more than 1,000 rooms each in downtown Portland, while Starwood customers have only a highly competitive Westin hotel and a couple of aging Starwood hotels with fewer amenities.
Sage had previously said it was considering a Renaissance hotel, a Marriott brand.
Portland's hotel market has been recovering for several years and should be strong enough to handle another high-end hotel downtown, Dundon said.
Sage Hospitality could have a hard time drawing people to the eighth-floor hotel lobby, even if it has a ground-floor entrance, Dundon said.
"It remains to be seen what type of hurdles they have being so high up in the air in a market the size of Portland," Dundon said. "That will be interesting to see."
Dylan Rivera: 503-221-8532;
dylanrivera@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/printer/pr...780.xml&coll=7
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