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That fenced-off hole in the ground at Southwest Third Avenue and Oak Street, in downtown Portland, might not be around much longer if a Japanese hotel chain can win design approval for a new development.

Toyoko Inn is proposing a 19-story, 486-room hotel on the parcel. The hospitality group is scheduled to meet with Portland Bureau of Development Services staff during a pre-application conference on March 29.

The downtown Portland hotel would be Toyoko’s first U.S. location.

鈥淚t’s kind of a budget hotel for business travelers,鈥� said Richard Kalb, a Chicago architect who is designing the project. 鈥淭hey basically market clean, efficient, economic quarters for the business guy, etc.鈥�

Toyoko purchased the property for $1,024,000 from the Portland Development Commission (now Prosper Portland) in September 2016.

The property has some history. It was once a jail annex that neighbored police headquarters on the block. The city of Portland vacated the block in 1984, and then struggled for the next 30 years to find anyone to develop the southwest corner of the property. Those efforts were complicated by a 99-year lease on an underground parking lot. The PDC made annual payments to satisfy the parking encumbrance.

Meanwhile, the police headquarters building was redeveloped for office use and the Westshore Apartments, a subsidized affordable housing complex, was constructed on the block.

In 2015, the PDC marketed the remaining quarter-block property and entertained three offers before settling on the Toyoko Inn chain. It was identified in PDC documents as the largest hospitality chain in Japan, with more than 240 hotels in that country and elsewhere.

The PDC estimated the property would bring in more than $300,000 annually in property taxes.

Menashe Properties also bid on the property, said Jordan Menashe, principal at the family-owned Portland firm.

Menashe acknowledged Menashe Properties’ bid was lower than Toyoko’s, but said the PDC should have made a counteroffer.

鈥淭hey should have come back, but they didn’t,鈥� he said. 鈥淣ow we’re going to have a very low-end hotel. 鈥� I don’t think the PDC chose the correct use for that area.鈥�

The hotel would come after a rush of other hospitality projects, although none matches Toyoko’s budget business hotel model. Projects such as the 600-room Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center and the Graves Hospitality boutique hotel in the West End are on track to be completed sooner.

The Toyoko design could be required to change as it enters Portland’s design review process. Some of the Toyoko hotels in Japan have large 鈥渢oyoko-inn.com鈥� lettering on the upper floors that may run counter to a guideline that says signs 鈥渟hould have only a minimal presence in the Portland skyline.鈥�

No design renderings of the project were available, Kalb said. A Toyoko Inn official did not respond to an email message seeking comment.