91视频

While lawsuits that could ultimately derail the $212 million headquarters hotel project continue to swirl, developers are seeking advice to jump-start the design process.

Portland-based Ankrom Moisan Architects, which is partnering with lead design firm Elness Swenson Graham Architects of Minneapolis, submitted a request for the Portland Design Commission to weigh in on the project. The commission will take up the application at its Sept. 18 hearing.

The key question, said Jeff Madden, Portland-based general manager for Mortenson Construction, the project’s design-build firm, is how the development will allow public access through the superblock portion into the Lloyd District and other commercial areas.

鈥淲hat we’re working on right now is massing the hotel in a way that it has the right public access in it,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou have to get around the hotel to condos, the Moda Center and everything else in the district.鈥�

The hotel, which has drawn several lawsuits challenging financing plans, is expected to be 19 to 21 stories tall, hold 600 rooms and total approximately 450,000 square feet, according to plans filed with the city.

At the hearing, only the site will be reviewed and not the building design, according to plans filed with the city. Developers would like to locate a plaza at the corner of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Holladay Street that would allow access through the site.

Design advice represents the formal start of the design process, Madden said. Mortenson would like to start construction by summer 2015, he added.