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Desmond Mollendor’s company plans to spend $10 million renovating the Red Lion Hotel near the Oregon Convention Center, despite talk of a 600-room hotel being built expressly for convention attendees.

Mollendor said he is not concerned about potential competition.

“We think it’s a good thing that the (proposed) hotel may finally be coming to fruition,” said Mollendor, a partner in Grand Venture Hotel LLC, the Red Lion’s new owner. “They’ve built the convention center, and it can actually realize its potential with a hotel.”

Whatever happens – or doesn’t happen – with the other hotel, Mollendor said it won’t affect plans to launch an exterior and interior renovation of the 174-room Red Lion this fall.

“It’s going to be a complete renovation similar to what we did with the Hotel Modera,” he said.

The Hotel Modera – formerly the Portland Inn City Center – in 2008 was transformed from a Days Inn into a luxury boutique hotel. Holst Architecture created a new motor entrance and lobby for the building.

Holst will be brought back for the Red Lion project, Mollendor said, but a general contractor for the project has not been selected yet.

“We’re going to bring back the hotel to its original roots,” he said. “It was built in 1963. It will be a kind of mid-century modern design similar to the Hotel Modera, but on this side of the river.”

Mollendor said the Red Lion might not operate as a Red Lion after the renovation. Plans call for creating a lobby bar, expanding the existing lobby and adding top-floor restaurants.

The major difference between the Red Lion and the Modera is that the former has larger meeting space on the top floor with a fantastic view of downtown Portland, he said.

To accommodate the renovation, the hotel will close for seven to nine months.

Mollendor and his partners at Grand Ventures Hotel bought the hotel from Seattle-based Wright Hotels Inc. two months ago. They wanted a hotel near the Lloyd District housing and office developments in the works, he said.

“We think it’s an up-and-coming area,” he added.