Renovation projects are often full of surprises. The full renovation of Hotel Eastlund, a 4-star, 168-room boutique hotel in the heart of the Portland’s Lloyd District, was no exception.

Originally built in the 1960s, the hotel’s floors and load-bearing walls were laced with tensioning cables. Deconstruction was painfully slow at times as ground-penetrating radar and x-ray machines were on-site through most of the project to insure those cables were not damaged and that structural integrity of the building was maintained.

What had originally been planned as a selective demolition turned into a full gutting of the building’s interior. All plumbing and electrical features were replaced and new low-voltage communication lines were installed.

Electric controls were consolidated into a 22-foot vault that originally was intended to be placed outside. However, restrictions due to the nearby light-rail tracks and other problems caused it to be engineered to go underground, pushed back into the building. Seismic upgrades were made in the basement and the hotel’s restaurant and cafe were moved to the rooftop.

The $22 million project was further pressured by a very tight time line. Grand Ventures Hotel, the owner, wanted the project finished in time for the beginning of the busy season that starts with Portland’s Rose parade in late spring. From the start of demolition, Deacon Corp. often had crews working double shifts and extra attention paid to tracking material orders to bring them in on time.  The result was a completion date of May 2015, just nine months from start to finish.

Project Team + Stats

Location: Portland, Oregon

Cost: $22 million

Start date: September 2014

Completion date: May 2015

Owner/developer: Grand Ventures Hotel LLC

Architect: Holst Architecture

Engineer: MKE Consulting Engineers

General contractor: Deacon Corp.

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The dream of Ralph B. Lloyd to transform the Lloyd District into a second city center is well on its way to coming true, according to developer Wade Lange. That’s what he told about 80 guests last week at an event at the Hotel Eastlund sponsored by Commercial Real Estate Women Portland.

Lange, vice president and Portland regional manager of American Assets Trust, said Lloyd died before his dream could come true, but his descendants continued to foster development.

“Ralph died before he could see it, but his daughters carried on,” he said. “The Lloyd District had a bad reputation, but now it’s the safest district in the city.”

American Assets Trust is tackling many Lloyd District developments. One is Hassalo on Eighth, which includes a 21-story tower with 337 apartments, a six-story building with 143 apartments and a five-story building with 143 apartments, all with retail space on the ground floor. A grand opening is planned in September.

“We have 1,000 people who live in the Lloyd District and our developments would double that,” Lange said.

He also mentioned other future or in-progress developments in the district. For instance, the headquarters hotel – a 600-room Hyatt Regency to serve the Oregon Convention Center – is on tap to go up near the Hotel Eastlund.

Lange also said a California company is planning to start construction in about a year and a half on a 900-unit market-rate apartment building next to the Lloyd Center shopping mall, which is receiving improvements.

“Cypress Equity (officials) purchased the mall about a year ago and said they would put $50 million into the property.

“The Lloyd District used to be called ‘the Lloyd void.’ But that’s not the case anymore and we are seeing the results of foundations raised many years ago.”

Also at the CREW event, Alan Battersby, owner of the Hotel Eastlund, said transportation development has helped the district, even though many observers had doubts.

“The south end wasn’t getting the traffic, but I’m guessing in the end we were right,” he said. “This is a building no one wanted. But with mass transit we can see how it will benefit the community.”

The four-star hotel, formerly a Red Lion, recently opened and is taking reservations, he said. Rebuilding was a big job, he said, and included extensive removal of hazardous materials such as lead paint, mold and asbestos. The hotel was given a completely new design.

Battersby, as he spoke, pointed out the glass walls overlooking the city from the hotel’s sixth-floor conference room.

“The windows on the sixth floor were once corridors and you couldn’t see out,” he said. “And the restaurant terrace was terrible. They built the bar to block off all views to the south. Now it may be the finest space to dine in Portland.”

Battersby gave a tour of some of the hotel rooms and the restaurant – the Alta Bira City Tavern – where staffers were busy polishing their skills and getting everything ready.

Now the walls of the restaurant, which opens this week, are all made of glass. The adjoining outdoor area can seat more than 100 diners at tables and on sofas around fire pits.

Battersby said the hotel market in Portland is hot and will continue to be so for some time to come.

“M���Բ� hotels have sold in the last 18 months and will continue for the next 18 months,” he said. “When I came here in 2008 Portland wasn’t even considered a primary city on the West Coast. Now these same Fortune 500 companies think it is. Things are changing rapidly.”

According to the Lloyd District Community Association website at www.lloyddistrict.org/hist.asp, when the Lloyd Center opened in 1960, it was the largest shopping center in the country and gave the district its first big boost for future development.

Although Lloyd died in 1953, his four daughters and their families carried out his dream, the site states.

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A grand opening was held this week for Hotel Eastlund, a newly-remodeled Lloyd District boutique hotel. The former Red Lion on Northeast Grand Avenue was purchased in 2013 by Seattle-based Grand Ventures Hotel LLC, a group of partners also responsible for the 2008 renovation of Hotel Modera in downtown Portland.

Holst Architecture designed the hotel’s $10 million renovation, which general contractor Deacon began work on last September. Major improvements included updating the building with a new curtainwall that provides rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, conversion of a vehicle driveway to a pedestrian entry with expanded lobby space, removing sections of post-tensioned concrete to accommodate an express elevator to the hotel’s top-floor restaurant and bar, and opening up the previously-windowless ballroom and exposing it to natural light.

Corner rooms at the hotel were combined and converted to suites, bringing the room count from 174 to 168. A ground-floor bakery and café, Citizen Baker, will double as a wine bar in the evenings. Altabira City Tavern, the hotel’s top-floor restaurant and bar, features views of downtown Portland and opens Monday.

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, the former Red Lion hotel in the Lloyd District, is receiving a $10 million update courtesy of Seattle-based Grand Venture Hotel LLC. The developer purchased the 52-year-old building in 2013, and general contractor Deacon began work on the Holst Architecture-designed remodel last September.

The six-story building has been updated with a new curtainwall system that provides rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, exterior metal fins and canopies, and new mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC systems. Pedestrian access improvements include converting a driveway on the Northeast Hassalo Street side of the building to a pedestrian-only entrance, allowing for an expansion of the hotel lobby.

Sections of post-tensioned concrete were removed to create a shaft for an express elevator to the hotel’s new top-floor restaurant and bar, Altabira City Tavern. The previously windowless top-floor ballroom has been opened up, allowing for bright natural light and downtown views. The hotel’s corner rooms have been combined and converted to suites featuring living areas that can be separated from the bedroom with a sliding wall, bringing the room count from 174 to 168. The hotel is scheduled to open this May.

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The Portland Design Commission on Thursday approved designs for a $10 million remodel to transform the Lloyd District Red Lion Hotel into a boutique hotel.

Commissioners voted 3-1 for approval on the conditions that metal screens on the parking level be doubled up or otherwise made less transparent and planters be added to the east side of the building.

General contractor S.D. Deacon is expected to start construction in September. The remodeled hotel, at 1021 N.E. Grand Ave, is scheduled to reopen under the new name Hotel Eastlund in May 2015.

Plans for the Grand Ventures Hotel LLC project call for extensive renovations. The hotel will gain a new exterior window system, metal fins and canopies, a small retail space, an additional exterior elevator for parking and a stair entry on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Lobby space will be expanded and a roof deck will be reconfigured with an added trellis.

Overall, design commissioners were impressed with the changes.

“You’ve made some incredible moves to transform this,” Commissioner David Wark told the project’s design team from Portland-based Holst Architecture.

When the remodel is complete, the hotel will have a vastly different exterior, said Kevin Valk, a Holst Architecture senior associate. This includes spruced-up storefronts on the ground floor with orange accent squares, planters, trellises and benches. The upper floors will have new white curtain wall systems. Paint will be scraped off to reveal red brick.

“The building has been painted a pretty monotonous peachy beige over the years,” Valk said.

The hotel will be made more pedestrian friendly, he said. Two driveways will be removed to create additional lobby space, and new pedestrian entries will be added. An existing pedestrian entrance on Northeast Holladay Street will be improved and better defined with a canopy.

The ground floor will also include benches integrated into the building facade.

“We’re able to get a little moment where people can stop,” Valk said.

Mesh metal screens will be added to screen the view of hotel visitors’ cars parked on the ground floor. The orange boxes, which will have planters, trellises and LED lights integrated into them, will also distract passersby, Valk said.

“The orange boxes are creating some interest as you walk along the sidewalk and take (notice) away from the parking,” he said.

Design commissioners noted that the mesh parking screening material was too transparent.

“I think the mesh is the Achilles’ heel of the entire project,” Wark said. “It just isn’t enough.”

Commissioner Tad Savinar, who voted against approving the project design, said he would prefer screens that are more visually appealing to passersby.

“I feel the screening is a hardware solution,” he said. “This is a neighborhood that has been continually beat down from an urban design perspective, so this is really important.”

Valk suggested doubling up the mesh screens, and commissioners approved the proposal.

“This is finding that balance of providing eyes on the street and screening the parking,” he said. “It’s a fine line.”

Hotel Eastlund

Location: 1021 N.E. Grand Ave., Portland

Cost: $10 million

Construction start date: September 2014

Anticipated completion date: May 2015

Owner: Grand Ventures Hotel LLC

General contractor: S.D. Deacon

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Desmond Mollendor’s company plans to spend $10 million renovating the Red Lion Hotel near the Oregon Convention Center, despite talk of a 600-room hotel being built expressly for convention attendees.

Mollendor said he is not concerned about potential competition.

“We think it’s a good thing that the (proposed) hotel may finally be coming to fruition,” said Mollendor, a partner in Grand Venture Hotel LLC, the Red Lion’s new owner. “They’ve built the convention center, and it can actually realize its potential with a hotel.”

Whatever happens – or doesn’t happen – with the other hotel, Mollendor said it won’t affect plans to launch an exterior and interior renovation of the 174-room Red Lion this fall.

“It’s going to be a complete renovation similar to what we did with the Hotel Modera,” he said.

The Hotel Modera – formerly the Portland Inn City Center – in 2008 was transformed from a Days Inn into a luxury boutique hotel. Holst Architecture created a new motor entrance and lobby for the building.

Holst will be brought back for the Red Lion project, Mollendor said, but a general contractor for the project has not been selected yet.

“We’re going to bring back the hotel to its original roots,” he said. “It was built in 1963. It will be a kind of mid-century modern design similar to the Hotel Modera, but on this side of the river.”

Mollendor said the Red Lion might not operate as a Red Lion after the renovation. Plans call for creating a lobby bar, expanding the existing lobby and adding top-floor restaurants.

The major difference between the Red Lion and the Modera is that the former has larger meeting space on the top floor with a fantastic view of downtown Portland, he said.

To accommodate the renovation, the hotel will close for seven to nine months.

Mollendor and his partners at Grand Ventures Hotel bought the hotel from Seattle-based Wright Hotels Inc. two months ago. They wanted a hotel near the Lloyd District housing and office developments in the works, he said.

“We think it’s an up-and-coming area,” he added.

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