The doors to the 135-year-old Society Hotel in Old Town Chinatown officially opened last week after over a year’s worth of seismic upgrades and renovation. The building at 203 N.W. Third Ave. was constructed in 1880 by the Seamen’s Friend Society as a safe haven for sailors passing through Portland, and after years of mostly sitting vacant is once again a place for weary travelers to rest.

The hotel/hostel hybrid contains 38 guest rooms on the upper three floors, including 26 that have shared bathrooms and 12 with in-suite baths. The building’s ground floor features a lobby, a café and a hostel-style area with 24 bunk beds, restrooms and a kitchenette. A rooftop patio provides sweeping views of the city.

The hotel’s owner/developer, KeyMar LLC, is a partnership between four partners, each whom brought unique expertise to the project: Matt Siegel, owner of construction firm Building Blocks LLC; Gabe Genauer, owner of Groundswell Development; Jonathan Cohen, founder and principal of Imagine Energy; and Jessie Burke, owner of Posies Bakery & Café.

Building Blocks LLC served as the project’s contractor, and Integrate Architecture designed the project.

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The old Mariners Home, built in 1882 and vacant for more than 30 years, will again be a haven for travelers when it reopens in October.

The building of at the corner of Northwest Davis Street and Northwest Third Avenue in Portland’s Old Town Chinatown district will be renamed the and will offer hostel-style bunk beds as well as private rooms and suites.

The building has undergone massive renovation and seismic upgrades since reconstruction began more than a year ago, said Matt Siegel, owner of Building Blocks LLC. Siegel is one of four partners who are investing between $4 million and $5 million in the building. The partners, including Jessie Burke, Gabe Genauer and Jonathan Cohen, secured approximately $700,000 in loans from the Portland Development Commission and obtained the rest of the money from Lewis & Clark Bank.

Cohen, an engineer, designed a “top-notch system” with heat pumps that will “heat and cool and provide continuous fresh air into every room,” Siegel said.

Siegel’s company is in charge of construction with project management by Groundswell Development, Inc. The design was handled by Integrate Architecture, DCI Engineers and Blossom Igarashi Interior Design. All are based in Portland.

Shawn Uhlman, spokesman for the Portland Development Commission, said he toured the almost finished building last week and anticipates the project will transform the neighborhood.

“Hotel projects in Old Town Chinatown have been pretty rare things,” Uhlman said. “But it will have a steady stream of people outside the “8 to 5” window and that augments all of the positive momentum that seems to be occurring there right now. It’s a welcome addition and will be bringing tourists to that part of Portland – the oldest part of the city. They will come and bring their dollars and it will have a fantastic ripple effect.”

In addition, Uhlman said Siegel and his team have been extremely cooperative throughout the whole process.

“We have really enjoyed working with that team and they are to be commended,” he said.

A SHARED PASSION

The four-member team consists of Siegel, whose company specializes in historic preservation; “technical guru” Cohen; Genauer, with 27 years in real estate and construction; and Burke, “hospitality expert and community-organizing glue,” according to hotel literature.

One thing the four all have in common is their passion for the project, Siegel said, and they plan on running the hotel themselves. When asked how much experience they had in running a hotel, Siegel was blunt.

“Absolutely none,” he said with a big grin.

The hotel will be staffed full-time around the clock, Siegel said, and he and his partners will depend on the expertise of consultant Mark Keller of Partnership Hospitality.

The building was once a place of refuge for sailors back in the late 1800s, and Siegel said he hopes to attract modern-day adventurers.

“We went back and forth on the name, but it was first used by the Seaman’s Friendship Society,” he said. “We want it to be welcome and open to adventurous travelers because that’s who came to Portland 150 years ago.”

Rates will range from $35 per night for a bunk bed to $135 a night for a private suite and bath. The hostel portion of the hotel will feature triple-level bunk. Hostel guests will have storage lockers, privacy curtains, reading lamps and electric outlets, Siegel said, and the hotel will have free Wi-Fi throughout.

“We will also have common space just for the hostel with couches, lockers, three bathrooms and a kitchenette,” he said.

Siegel gave a tour of the building last week, stepping around scores of workers as they nailed up drywall and took other final steps to bring the building to completion.

“We are in the finishing phase,” he said. “We’re finishing the drywall, with the carpenters and painters soon to follow.”

The hotel was originally three stories, but in 1891 the entire structure was raised for the addition of a new bottom floor that featured cast iron exterior detailing, Siegel said.

PRESERVING DETAILS

According to the Oregon Historical Society, the was originally a seamen’s bethel (chapel), kitchen, reading room and chaplain’s quarters in 1879 run by the Portland Seamen’s Friends Society to help improve the lot of sailors. In 1882, the society built the three-story building that became the Mariners’ Home, designed by prominent Portland architect Justus Krumbein. The society sold the structure in 1903.

Many historical artifacts were found in the hotel, which will be on display, and historic details will be preserved, Siegel said. Those details include cherry wood staircase banisters, door trim and wainscoting, and original stair treads. Old doors will be used as wall panels behind the reception desk, and the brick and stucco exterior will be fully preserved.

But the finished hotel also will have every modern convenience, including a newly installed elevator that goes all the way to the roof, Siegel said.

“The elevator shaft is a major part of the seismic upgrade and we have new concrete walls up to the roof,” he said. “We even made the concrete look old, using board forms, like they would have done 100 years ago.

The building uses “a ton of hardware” to pull it all the structural elements together, Siegel said.

“That allowed us to group the bathrooms around the center of the building and the rooms around the perimeter,” he said.

The smallest “standard” rooms are only about 10 by 12 feet, but have ceilings at least 10 feet high. Each will have custom-built queen size beds with under-bed storage and vintage-style lighting fixtures and communal bathrooms. The largest rooms, or suites, will have king-size beds, pull-out sofa beds and private bathrooms. All the rooms will feature original 8-foot-tall windows.

“The décor of the rooms is sparse and clean and very efficient,” Siegel said.

The ground floor of the building will have two entrances, one for the front desk and another for a café. The café, which will be open to the public, will serve coffee, tea and snacks during daytime hours and wine and beer at night.

The spacious lounging area between the front desk and the café will have a gas fireplace and leather couches, Siegel said.

“We want all our spaces to be comfortable at all times,” he said.

That extends to the roof, which has been reinforced to support any activity, Siegel said.

“We rebuilt the entire roof to support whatever we want to do,” he said. “We will put in a wooden deck, lots of plants, shaded areas, bench sheets and tables.”

Future activities on the roof could include movie nights, he said, and possibly music events. The roof will also support a large solar array and will have green roof elements.

“We are personally and emotionally invested, and will be on site quite a bit,” he said. “People will be able to start making reservations in about a month and a half.”

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Renovation work continues on an Old Town Chinatown building that is being converted to the Society Hotel, a 36-room boutique hotel and hostel. General contractor Building Blocks LLC is pouring footings for a concrete and steel elevator shaft running through the center of the building, which is being redeveloped by owner group KeyMar LLC. Additional footings will be poured for shear walls that will provide seismic stability for the 5-story unreinforced masonry building, and demolition continues on the building’s interior lath and plaster walls.

Completion of the Integrate Architecture-designed project is slated for May 2015.

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Renovating the old Seaman’s Bethel building in Portland’s Old Town/Chinatown into a European-style hostel will start with the foundation and move all the way to the roof.

That process begins with removing a rubble foundation that has supported the long-vacant 12,000 square-foot, four-story building on Northwest Third Avenue and replacing it with a modern seismic, support system without losing the building’s historic nature.

A development group called KeyMar LLC is remaking the currently unreinforced building into the Society Hotel, a 39-room hostel that will include a ground-floor café and rooftop terrace.

“Seismic is the challenge,” said Matt Siegel, a KeyMar partner and the principal of Building Blocks LLC, which is the design-build contractor on the project. “We are wrapping our heads around the massive seismic upgrades that have to be done to bring it up to a place where it will last another 100 years.”

Massive footings will be poured into two corners of the building and a third seismic support – a concrete and steel elevator shaft – will run up through the center of the building.

Hundreds of metal straps will be tied into the building’s brick walls and ceilings, creating a system that will absorb the shock of a major earthquake, Siegel said.

As the seismic work proceeds, no alterations will be made visible from the exterior of the building except a fresh coat of paint, Siegel said. Instead of adding diagonal cross braces on windows, Building Blocks basically will build a building inside of a building, with eight-inch-thick concrete shear walls bracing the building from its footings all the way to the roof.

“We elected not to use the cross braces because it disrupts the historic look of the building,” Siegel said. “Instead, we will build new concrete walls inside of the old.”

Seismic work will represent about 20 percent of the total construction costs, said Jonathan Cohen, a partner in KeyMar. Cohen would not disclose total project costs because the design and some permits are still in process.

The project will involve significant energy upgrades that will allow the developers to apply for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold designation, said Cohen, who also is a principal of Imagine Energy LLC, a Portland-based energy consulting and design firm.

KeyMar is looking to place the building on the National Historic Register, which could garner a 20 percent tax credit against improvement costs upon completion of the project, Cohen said.

With an eye toward earning a spot on the register, the project team worked with Heritage Consulting Group, a national firm with offices in Portland, to determine the historic use of the building and how the building would be preserved.

For example, KeyMar will preserve and maintain several aspects of the building, particularly those in the most public parts of the building, Cohen said. An aged handrail along the stairwell that currently does not meet code requirements will be kept in place and wrapped with a higher guard rail that meets code, Cohen said. Additionally, about three tons of Douglas fir wood stripped from the ceilings throughout the building will be remilled and reinstalled on the ground floor.

The National Park Service and the State Office of Historic Preservation approved the team’s submitted preservation plan, which will be monitored throughout the project. Placement on the registry would be made upon completion of the project, Cohen said.

Energy efficient systems will be installed throughout the building without causing significant changes to the building’s historic nature, including energy-efficient features, rooftop photovoltaic panels and a heat recovery ventilation system that recirculates air throughout the building, according to Cohen.

Laser-cut window inserts will be placed inside the building’s single-paned windows, sealing out air loss, Cohen said. The inserts will keep the windows intact for historic preservation, he said.

That process of creating energy efficiency without altering the historic aspects of the building is critical for the success of historic preservation, said Peggy Moretti, executive director of Restore Oregon, who has toured the future Society Hotel building and called the project “a good catalyst” for other projects that could follow in the Old Town area.

The building’s natural ventilation features and windows lend themselves to technology upgrades, Moretti said.

“There are lots of ways these ways buildings can be made very energy efficient,” she said. “There’s a lot of old technology, but you can build in energy efficiency without losing the historic nature of the building.”

Project: The Society Hotel

Address: 203-209 N.W. Third Ave., Portland

Construction start: November 2013

Completion: May 2015

Project owner: KeyMar LLC

Architect: Integrate Architecture

Engineer: DCI Engineers

General contractor: Building Blocks LLC

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Walking through the building at 203 N.W. Third Ave. is like taking a step back in time. The 134-year-old building is full of relics from the past, from yellowed old newspapers to graffiti on the wall by “The Frisco Kid,” who passed through 80 years ago. What was once a safe haven for sailors passing through Portland will again become a stopping point for weary travelers after a $3 million renovation is completed on the future Society Hotel.

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The building at 203 N.W. Third Ave. is full of history. In fact, it’s littered with it.

Jonathan Cohen, a member of the group that plans to redevelop the building, recently held up a crinkly and weathered piece of paper dating back to the 1890s, when the 12,000-square-foot structure served briefly as a hospital.

“We have a (list) of people who were leaving the hospital, and it’s kind of a who’s who of famous Portland names,” he said.

“Ladd” and “Ainsworth” were both prominent names on the list.

With the help of the Portland Development Commission, Cohen and three business partners plan to convert the 134-year-old building into a modern hostel and boutique hotel.

The Society Hotel will require a major seismic upgrade as well as extensive interior refurbishment because many of the rooms haven’t been touched in more than a century. One wall still has a hastily scribbled message from the “Frisco Kid,” who evidently passed through in 1934. Project partners see an opportunity to play up the building’s storied past, which began as a safe haven for sailors who were lured into incurring drinking and gambling debts.

“So that’s where the idea of Shanghai-ing came from,” Cohen said. “It wasn’t so much that people got knocked out and dragged onto boats. It was essentially that they were indentured servants. So this building was built to somewhat stem that effect.”

The building was one of the first brick structures in Portland to be raised off the ground, said project partner Matt Siegel, the owner of Building Blocks LLC; that bumped the building up from three stories to four. He said plans for seismic bracing will involve tying the building into a new concrete elevator shaft. The structure also features one of Portland’s few remaining cast-iron facades.

Interior designers will have lots of material to work with. One creepy item inside is the skeleton of a long-dead bird staring at its egg. Old newspapers also abound. One wartime copy of the now-defunct Portland Telegram reads, “China’s war is over,” and ” ‘Zep’ nears U.S.” A full-page ad from the Meier & Frank Co. urges readers to buy war bonds and donate blood.

Those papers were published in the 1940s – around the same time, Cohen said, that a consortium of Chinese families acquired the building. It was previously owned by a Japanese family that the government sent to an internment camp during World War II.

The building’s present-day owners hope their redevelopment will help bring those stories back to life – throughout the neighborhood.

“You can feel the history here because of the building stock,” Cohen said. “So you can’t help but talk about all of the different things that have happened here. This is the Ellis Island of Portland essentially. This part of town is where everybody came off the ships.”

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When Jonathan Cohen and his development partners tour their property at 203 N.W. Third Ave., they don’t see an old, dusty, abandoned building. They see a time capsule waiting to be opened.

“This building was built by the Seamen’s (Friend) Society, and their goal was kind of a YMCA of sorts for sailors,” said Cohen, the owner of Portland-based Imagine Energy. “So this was specifically intended to be like a safe haven for sailors from the vices of gambling and drinking and prostitution that otherwise plagued the area.”

That was in the 1880s, but Old Town Chinatown remains a gritty area. However, Cohen’s group, with its $3 million building renovation, isn’t looking to transform the neighborhood, but rather celebrate it.

“I don’t think anybody wants to turn this area into the Pearl District,” he said. “I don’t think anybody wants to turn it into an extension of downtown. We want it to be unique, and everybody that’s here that I’ve talked to loves the gritty nature and history of this area. It’s always been gritty, and we kind of want it to stay that way to an extent.”

The group plans to soon begin converting its building into a hotel-hostel hybrid called the Society Hotel. It will feature a lobby and café on the ground floor, with a room set aside for bunking backpackers, and 36 private rooms on the upper floors.

Development partner Matt Siegel, the owner of local design-build company Building Blocks LLC, the project’s general contractor, in spring 2013 encountered a kind of hotel-hostel business in Chicago. He liked the concept. With a penchant for historic preservation, he set his sights on Old Town Chinatown, where many underused buildings stand.

“It is the heart of the city – the original heart of the city,” Siegel said. “It’s still an amazing location as far as proximity to everything that travelers need … and it’s also the last remaining ungentrified space.”

A few successes – such as the renovation of the White Stag Building for the University of Oregon, and the rehabilitation of the Globe Hotel for the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine – stand out. But those projects haven’t catalyzed development on surrounding blocks.

That could change. Gerding Edlen has plans for a new mixed-use development near OCOM, and Mayor Charlie Hales recently announced his intention to redirect approximately $57 million in urban renewal money toward the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, Society Hotel development partner Jessie Burke – Cohen’s wife and the owner of Posies Bakery & Café in the Kenton neighborhood – sees opportunity.

“When we were looking at this property,” Burke recalled, “people were (saying), ‘Chinatown’s dead. There’s nothing going to happen here.’ And I was (saying), ‘That’s not how things work. If it’s at the bottom, things are going to get better.’ ”

The Kenton neighborhood is one example. It’s now considered by real estate agents as one of Portland’s up-and-coming neighborhoods, but when Burke and Cohen moved there in 2004 it was rough.

Burke decided to make some improvements. She rebooted an off-line business association, began campaigning for neighborhood improvement grants (more than $64,000 in the past four years), and started a local street fair. She opened Posies on North Denver Avenue in 2009.

Old Town Chinatown’s lack of activity doesn’t deter her.

“Kenton was the same way,” she said. “We had a lot of homelessness and drug use and dealing and prostitution, but once you get activity in the core area, then that type of character feels uncomfortable with everyone else around witnessing their activities. So I think the same is present here. We just need to work on the ratios.”

Burke joined the Old Town Chinatown Community Association, and is now working to create a subcommittee of businesses. Burke, whose mother is Chinese, grew up seeing the decline of Chinatown in Washington, D.C. As was the case there, she believes the older generations of Portland’s Chinese community have written Chinatown off.

Burke, 33, believes it’s up to her generation to reinvent a more culturally appropriate version. She looks at the presence of the Davis Street Tavern and the recent arrival of Airbnb as evidence of the area’s appetite for business.

She does, however, question how great it is for hospitality. She noted that three of the five development proposals being considered for the Grove Hotel nearby involve hostel concepts. The Society Hotel group – Cohen, Siegel, Burke and Gabe Genauer, owner of Groundswell Development in Portland – is concerned that such a project may not complement its own.

The group purchased its building this past October for $700,000, and is paying for improvements with a $700,000 loan from the Portland Development Commission, a commercial bank loan and historic tax credits.

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The partners behind the Society Hotel renovation are bullish on the market opportunity for their project, but wonder whether the neighborhood can support a couple of others too.

An advisory committee for the Portland Development Commission is expected to soon present its preferred choice of five development proposals for the Grove Hotel property in Old Town Chinatown. Aaron Jones and Don Mutal are proposing mixed uses, including market-rate apartments; Beam Development and Urban Development Partners are suggesting a combination of creative office and retail space; three other finalists are proposing hostel-oriented hospitality concepts.

Also, Jessie Burke, one of the Society Hotel project partners, said plans still exist to create a hotel out of the old Harlow Block building, across from the 511 Federal Building on the North Park Blocks.

“While we’re psyched about our project, we’re only creating like six jobs, and we’re bringing in transient guests,” she said. “So tripling that effort seems silly if we have an opportunity to start working toward one or two of our major issues.”

Burke said those include job creation and addition of workforce housing in Old Town Chinatown. Both objectives are identified in the city’s five-year action plan for the neighborhood, but Burke and her colleagues are worried that the Grove Hotel could become a missed opportunity.

“As much as our project will bring a lot of foot traffic to the neighborhood, it doesn’t ultimately create a lot of jobs,” project partner Matt Siegel said. “Ultimately, for the neighborhood we need … people who live here with jobs who can spend money in the district, and help create a vibrant, balanced neighborhood. We also don’t know, ultimately, what the total appetite for this kind of accommodation is in Portland.”

But PDC spokesman Shawn Uhlman said the hostel concepts proposed for the Grove Hotel are different from the one planned for the Society Hotel. He said they should be able to coexist, regardless of the proposal chosen by the committee.

“According to the independent market study that was prepared, there’s more than enough demand for both projects to move forward,” he said.

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