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The Widewaters Group, a real estate development and management company based in Syracuse, N.Y., has purchased a downtown Portland site, and may pursue a new tower development.

The company, via Portland Hotel Ownership LLC, bought the half-block at 202-218 S.W. Jefferson St. from WDC Properties for $4.5 million. The site formerly held the 107-year-old Pendleton Building, which WDC Properties demolished earlier this year shortly after purchasing it, via Pendleton PDX LLC, for $1.7 million.

In August, Widewaters representatives met with Portland Bureau of Development Services staffers to discuss preliminary plans for a 23-story tower development on the downtown site. City planner Kara Fioravanti said the concept called for retail on the ground floor, lobby space on the second, 306 hotel rooms on floors 4 through 19 and 30 housing units on floors 20 through 23.

The Widewaters Group, through an affiliate company called Widewaters Hotels LLC, has developed and acquired more than 10 million square feet of buildings worth more than $1.6 billion, according to its website.

Portland’s hotel industry is expected to grow over the next few years, according to PKF Hospitality Research LLC. It anticipates revenue per available room, or RevPAR (a hotel metric calculated by multiplying average daily room rates by occupancy), to increase 10.9 percent in Portland by the end of 2013 – significantly more than the national projection of 5.2 percent. Occupancy in the Portland market is estimated to range between 70 and 72 percent over the next five years, according to PKF.

WDC Properties briefly considered a smaller development concept for the downtown site, and then put it back on the market for $5.85 million. Daren Duke, a senior vice president at Colliers International, was marketing the property as a potential tower development opportunity, and brokered the sale to The Widewaters Group.

Representatives of The Widewaters Group could not immediately be reached for comment.