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The downtown building that has housed Portland’s oldest restaurant – Huber’s Café – since its construction in 1910 soon will be converted into a high-end boutique hotel.

In January, the building, at 320 S.W. Stark, St., was purchased by California-based BPR Properties Portland LLC for $4.95 million. That same month, the new owner requested a commercial building permit to begin work, according to Bureau of Development Services records. The project is expected to cost $4.06 million.

Huber’s will neither be altered nor affected by the construction. Plans for the remodel indicate that the ground floor will be able to accommodate additional commercial businesses.

BPR Properties is a family-owned business that specializes in acquiring existing buildings and remodeling them to become boutique hotels.

A BPR Properties employee declined to comment, but the company’s website indicates that the structure is called the Oregon Pioneer Building and that in 1979 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Arris Studio Architects, based in San Luis Obispo, Calif., designed the remodel.

Interior demolition is under way. Tualatin-based E A White Construction Co. is the contractor hired to complete the conversion. A call to the company was not returned by press time.