The Sullivan’s Ridge Apartments represents a quintessential Portland project for 2021.

Located on Northeast Multnomah Street, just a few blocks from the Lloyd Center mall, the Sullivan’s Ridge Apartments represent the conversion of a former Residence Inn by Marriott into a 168-unit apartment complex spread across 10 separate buildings. It’s the perfect project for an era that has seen the decimation of the region’s hospitality industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while at the same time the surge of new residents calling Portland home has continued unabated.

“This type of conversion is actually pretty new in the marketplace,” said Charles Kidwell, a senior associate with Leeb Architects, the firm responsible for designing the project on behalf of Grand Peaks, a property management firm with six properties in the Portland-metro area and many others across the United States. “But I think it’s a byproduct of the downturn in the hospitality industry and the housing shortage.”

R&H Construction was the general contractor for the project, which received its final occupancy permits toward the end of June.

Built in 1996, the original Residence Inn was comprised of eight separate buildings hosting what were essentially apartments. That fit Marriott’s unique requirements for this brand, which catered to extended-stay travelers and vacationers looking for more than a mere hotel room. It also meant that no reconfiguration of existing floor layouts was required during the renovation of those eight three-story buildings.

Instead, finishes, furniture and interior aesthetic were the focus of the improvements for Leeb and colleagues from Garrison Hullinger Interior Design.

“The main changes were finishes,” Kidwell said. “They stripped out all of the flooring, replaced carpets and tile, and did a lot of repainting. Most of the other work that they did was any repairs that needed to be done, because obviously the apartments had been in use for 25 years.”

The bulk of the renovation work actually focused on a pair of buildings that formerly housed laundry facilities, along with guest amenities and management functions.

The so-called cabana building originally held the laundry equipment for the hotel. These days, it still hosts tenant laundry facilities, but those go alongside a new indoor gym and media room.

The clubhouse building, meanwhile, features the management office for the complex, a large tenant entertainment room with a kitchen, seating and a large fireplace and television. Upstairs, a conference room and another media room are available, while the mail room and maintenance headquarters are found on the ground floor.

“This space is the actual club space for residents,” Kidwell said. “The physical geometry of the space did not change. But all the finishes inside here are new.”

Gone are the old popcorn ceiling finish and worn carpet. In its place are new carpet, new recessed lighting, newly clad exposed beams across the ceiling and a newly finished kitchen space.

“One of the objectives of the clubhouse is as a marketing tool,” he said. “You want to appeal to the tenants who are looking for a more up-to-date place, so you have to get rid of the tired look from the old Residence Inn and make it look fresh. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Doing all this required the project team to go through a nine-month planning and zoning approval process because of the change of use from hospitality to residential. This also triggered new requirements for bicycle parking and ADA accessibility, which meant a plethora of new sidewalks, ramps, over 250 covered bike parking spaces and secure entrances had to be installed.

“From 1996 to now there have been a lot of changes in accessibility requirements,” Kidwell said. “And one of the biggest challenges of the project was getting it through the permitting process.”

Because much of that process was centered around the cabana and clubhouse buildings, it allowed the team to wrap up renovation of the first four residential buildings by February.

Leasing began in April while the rest of the residential units were renovated. The cabana and clubhouse buildings, meanwhile, were given their certificates of occupancy in late June.

Today, roughly half the complex is currently occupied, said Bailey Miller, assistant community manager for Sullivan’s Ridge.

“We’ve been open since April, and we’re already halfway full,” Miller said.

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