91ÊÓƵ

A proposal to convert a three-story, 114-year-old former church into a private club and construct a detached, five-story hotel nearby received land use approval from the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission on Monday.

The ex-First Church of Christ, Scientist is located at 1819 N.W. Everett St., in Portland’s Northwest District. The building, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, occupies the southern portion of the 30,000-square-foot, L-shaped site. More recently, the building had been home to the Northwest Neighborhood Cultural Center (NNCC), and then the Northwest Children’s Theater. The NNCC owns the property, which is for sale and developer Founders Developments plans to purchase.

Plans call for transforming the historic landmark into a private club with restaurants, a coffee shop, a spa, an event space, and a rooftop deck.

The new five-story building will be located at 1880 N.W. Flanders St. It will include an 80-room hotel, a restaurant and retail spaces. One loading space was proposed for the hotel. No parking was proposed.

Founders Developments of Las Vegas is developing the project for owner Gaia Ventures II LLC of Las Vegas. The team also includes Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture (HPA), structural and civil engineer KPFF, and landscape architect Lango Hansen. The project is valued at $30 million.

The project team previously received design advice from the Historic Landmarks Commission in October 2022.

The proposal calls for the addition of a third floor underneath the historic structure’s dome for event space, HPA principal Andrew Becker stated during Monday’s meeting. The team proposes to remove the partial east and west chimneys to install stairs. A guardrail will be installed along the roof’s edge for safety. Two new doors will be added to the upper story to provide access to the roof.

All the historic building’s street-facing windows will be restored. Other windows will either be restored or replaced.

Multiple modifications requested by the project team were granted by the commission. Those included: increasing the maximum height from 60 feet to 70 feet to allow the addition of a penthouse, decreasing the standard A loading space, allowing the loading space to be accessed and exited in a rearward motion, and increasing the maximum distance that short-term bike parking may be located from a main entrance, from 50 feet to 65 feet.

The commission added two conditions to its approval. First, on the historic building’s third floor, existing center window bays should be carefully removed and retained on-site in preparation for installation of the new doors to the rooftop. Second, for each ground-floor storefront bay in the hotel, the transom bar should extend across the entire opening with a consistent set of transom windows above the storefront windows and ground-level doors.