A hotel near Portland International Airport is being converted into two in one building. Construction began in June and is expected to finish next year.

The 200-room former Shilo Inn Airport hotel, currently being operated as Sojourn Suites, at 11707 N.E. Airport Way in Portland, will become two distinct hotels: Hyatt House and Mindaro by JdV (a Hyatt brand).

The project is being developed by property owner Vesta Hospitality of Vancouver, Washington. Vesta Hospitality acquired the property in June 2024 from a lender, PDX Shilo Loan Owner LLC, which took ownership in 2023, according to Multnomah County property records.

The Hyatt extended stay hotel will have 112 rooms with apartment-style layouts including a kitchen suite, living area and full closet. The Mindaro will have 90 rooms in a boutique lifestyle setting that pairs upscale amenities with a Pacific Northwest-inspired design, Linh DePledge, Vesta Hospitality vice president of brand and communications, stated in an email.

The project team also includes Skidmore AI (exterior design and architecture) of Seattle; Plante’s Hotel Renovation (interior design and some construction) of Austin, Texas; Swenson Say Fagét (structural engineering) of Seattle; AWA Electrical Consultants (electrical engineering) of Lynnwood, Washington; Bogard Pascua Engineers (HVAC and plumbing engineering) of Bothell, Washington; and Robertson & Olson Construction (general contractor) of Camas, Washington.

A $9.9 million building permit is under review for the remodel.

The full transformation involves redesigning guest rooms and public spaces, introducing new food-and-beverage concepts, elevating amenities, and enhancing the arrival experience and exterior expression, according to Vesta Hospitality. The aesthetic will reflect a modern Columbia River Corridor sensibility and align with Hyatt brand standards and Vesta’s elevated service model, Vesta Hospitality CEO and Chairman Rick Takach stated in an email.

While Vesta Hospitality could not disclose the total project cost at this time, Takach said the project is a substantial investment in the airport market.

“We feel good making that investment because how the upscale market at the airport is producing,” Takach said.

Vesta Hospitality is also developing Jawfish Restaurant, a stand-alone eatery that will connect to the hotels via a fully enclosed corridor. The menu will blend inventive cooking with elevated comfort food, DePledge stated. Inside Jawfish, a separate room with 28 seats will offer Le Petite Chef – an immersive dinner show experience.

“In that area we’re in, there’s not much food and beverage being offered,” Takach said. “We think it’ll kind of hit the mark for the whole area.”

Vesta Hospitality has worked with Mark Mathias and Ali Novinger, who closed Beaches Restaurant & Bar in Vancouver last year, on the project’s food and beverage aspects.

Jawfish is expected to open in November. Both the Hyatt House and the Mindaro are set to open next year.

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The newest historic renovation for the McMenamins chain was available for a sneak peek party today. Patrons could walk the halls of the Crystal Hotel, taste wine and talk with the people who helped with the project.

The Crystal Hotel, 100-year-old building in Portland’s West End, has been under a renovation for more than a year. It’s almost finished – a few spots on the walls and some unassembled urinals remain – but the building feels like a McMenamins. It has bold colors, whimsical touches and clues to its rich past. Read more about the history and renovation of the Crystal Hotel.

The project is sustainable in that it is a historic preservation, but the renovation also included other green features. The wood used was made from recycled lumber, and the HVAC and cooking equipment was designed to be energy efficient and certified by Energy Trust of Oregon, according Joe Vondrak, president of Pacific Crest Construction, the general contractor. A below-ground soaking pool is filled with salt water, which is better for the environment than are chemicals. McMenamins also plans to add a garden to the building’s roof.

The building has five floors with 51 rooms. Most of those rooms are small and do not have bathrooms, only sinks – “European queen rooms,” they’re called. But each room is themed to a song that once played at the Crystal Ballroom, next door. The rooms are painted with borders of song lyrics, and paintings of musicians hang on the walls. Every bed also has an elaborately painted headboard.

The hotel has a cafe on the ground floor – Zeus Cafe, named for nightclub owners Nate and Tilly Zusman, who worked the seedy Desert Room in the 1950s and ’60s. Below, in the basement, is the soaking pool and a dark lounge area called Al’s Den. The lounge is named after Al Winter, a notorious gambling kingpin who frequented the hotel in the ’40s.

The halls and stairways of the hotel are lined with pictures of the property’s past – from its founding days in the 1800s to its time in the Gay Triangle during the ’70s and ’80s.

The hotel doesn’t officially open until May 3, but it’s worth a look. Rooms run $85 to $165 a night.

The post McMenamins Crystal Hotel offers sneak peek appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The newest historic renovation for the McMenamins chain was available for a sneak peek party today. Patrons could walk the halls of the Crystal Hotel, taste wine and talk with the people who helped with the project.

The Crystal Hotel, 100-year-old building in Portland’s West End, has been under a renovation for more than a year. It’s almost finished – a few spots on the walls and some unassembled urinals remain – but the building feels like a McMenamins. It has bold colors, whimsical touches and clues to its rich past. Read more about the history and renovation of the Crystal Hotel.

The project is sustainable in that it is a historic preservation, but the renovation also included other green features. The wood used was made from recycled lumber, and the HVAC and cooking equipment was designed to be energy efficient and certified by Energy Trust of Oregon, according Joe Vondrak, president of Pacific Crest Construction, the general contractor. A below-ground soaking pool is filled with salt water, which is better for the environment than are chemicals. McMenamins also plans to add a garden to the building’s roof.

The building has five floors with 51 rooms. Most of those rooms are small and do not have bathrooms, only sinks – “European queen rooms,” they’re called. But each room is themed to a song that once played at the Crystal Ballroom, next door. The rooms are painted with borders of song lyrics, and paintings of musicians hang on the walls. Every bed also has an elaborately painted headboard.

The hotel has a cafe on the ground floor – Zeus Cafe, named for nightclub owners Nate and Tilly Zusman, who worked the seedy Desert Room in the 1950s and ’60s. Below, in the basement, is the soaking pool and a dark lounge area called Al’s Den. The lounge is named after Al Winter, a notorious gambling kingpin who frequented the hotel in the ’40s.

The halls and stairways of the hotel are lined with pictures of the property’s past – from its founding days in the 1800s to its time in the Gay Triangle during the ’70s and ’80s.

The hotel doesn’t officially open until May 3, but it’s worth a look. Rooms run $85 to $165 a night.

The post McMenamins Crystal Hotel offers sneak peek appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Renovations are taking place in the Grand Ballroom and lobby of the Hilton hotel in downtown Portland. The space in the basement of the hotel at 921 S.W. Sixth Ave. is getting new Sheetrock, lighting, paint and flooring. General contractor Western Construction Services is performing the work designed by Lundin Cole Architecture and Idea Interior Design.

The post Portland downtown Hilton renovated appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The vacant Grove Hotel on Burnside could soon become a youth hostel.

Developer David Gold and his business partner John Jay held meetings this week to discuss the next steps for turning the single-room occupancy building into an affordable place for young travelers to stay in downtown Portland.

Gold said it’s too soon to say whether the project will go forward, but they are discussing the concept with the Portland Development Commission and working on the logistics to head in that direction. The project team will meet several times in the coming weeks, Gold said.

Located at 421 W. Burnside St., the Grove Hotel contains 70 single-room occupancy units on its upper two floors and has two commercial spaces on its ground floor. Gold said the city plans to use the ground floor of the building to provide storage for homeless populations living downtown.

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They may offer different amenities, charge different rates and cater to different visitors, but all of Portland’s hotels are being affected by the recession.

The occupancy rate for the city’s hotels has fallen 12 percent in 2009, in keeping with a national trend in which the hospitality industry expects rough months ahead.

To date in 2009, Portland’s hotels have been able to keep only 63 percent of their rooms occupied and have 10,000 more room nights to fill this year over 2008. The economic downturn and the entrance of a slew of hotels to the market have combined to drive occupancy rates down, said Deborah Wakefield of Travel Portland.

A hotel building boom prior to the economic downturn brought the city Hotel Modera, The Nines, the aloft Hotel at Cascade Station and others. Now the market is diluted, Wakefield said.

“The timing could have been better, of course, but when those projects were on the drawing board, people were fat and happy,” she said.

Hotel general managers are looking to try anything to attract visitors.

Gus Castaneda is the general manager of the Mark Spencer Hotel, which straddles the Pearl District and downtown. He said his hotel in 2009 has seen a 6-percent decrease in occupancy through September compared to the same period last year. To remedy this, the Mark Spencer has reduced room rates and begun using Web-based marketing techniques to attract visitors. His marketing team checks the hotel’s Web site traffic at least three times a day.

“You have to be very aggressive right now to stay ahead of the wave,” he said.

He said he expects two or three hotels to face financial challenges in the coming year, when they may find themselves upside down on their loans.

At The Heathman Hotel, general manager Chris Erickson had a rosier outlook. More competition, he said, will ultimately drive more people to the city. The numbers of visitors have stayed relatively flat throughout the recession.

“Right now, people can get great deals,” he said, adding that more people are visiting Portland these days than cities about the same size.

The concern, locally and nationally, is that underperforming hotels will be easy pickings for investment firms that specialize in buying distressed properties, said Tony Cassie, regional manager of the Portland office of Marcus & Millichap.

At the national level, per-room revenue has dropped by 18.3 percent and created a strain on the operations of many properties, Cassie said.

“Hotels are worth a lot less. They’re worth a lot less, and that’s the reality,” Cassie said. “We just haven’t reached the crescendo yet.”

Carl Cook, president of Seattle-based investment firm Quantum Equities, said investment firms were hitting banks hard to build war chests to buy distressed properties.

Despite the gloom and anxiety, there are signs that Portland’s hospitality industry may be able to shoo away the firms with vulture funds, Wakefield said.

“The fact is that we are a big (meetings) city, and that’s helping us to some degree,” Wakefield said.

In July, the Elks held in Portland its Grand Lodge convention, which generated $30,000 in tours alone and an additional $7 million for the city, according to Wakefield. From Nov. 9-21, the city will host the Supercomputing convention, which is relying on 31 hotels to accommodate its attendees.

In the past, sometimes all of the city’s hotels were booked, Wakefield said. But she believes that won’t happen again for a while, even after the economy rebounds.

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