RFQ for Headquarters Hotel Set for September

PORTLAND-The Portland Development Commission this week will approve a plan for attracting an 800-room hotel near the newly expanded Oregon Convention Center.

Its approval will prompt PDC staff to prepare a request for qualifications for the $150-million project that will be issued Sept. 15. From the responses, which will be due Oct. 31, the PDC will select the most qualified and request formal proposals. The proposals will be due in April 2004. If a bona fide privately financed proposal is received, negotiations for a disposition and development agreement would occur during the second half of the year, with design occurring during 2005 and construction commencing in the summer of 2006 and being complete in the fall of 2008.

The preferred site for the so-called “headquarters hotel” is bordered by MLK Boulevard, Grand Avenue, Holladay Street and Oregon Street. The site is two blocks directly east of the Oregon Convention Center, on the city’s light rail line. It currently holds the Inn at the Convention Center, a run-down former Best Western the city acquired last year for $5.2 million. If the site were ultimately selected, the existing hotel would be demolished. An underground walkway would connect the new hotel to the convention center.