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GlobeSt.com UPDATE: City Begins HQ Hotel Negotiation

PORTLAND, OR-The Portland Development Commission authorizes staff to begin negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding with locally based Ashforth Pacific and its partner Dallas-based Garfield Traub Development for a $100-million-plus convention headquarters hotel across from the Oregon Convention Center.

By Brian K. Miller | Updated on November 01, 2005

PORTLAND, OR-The Portland Development Commission has officially selected locally based Ashforth Pacific and Dallas-based Garfield Traub as the development team with which it will move forward on the development of a convention headquarters hotel adjacent to the recently expanded Oregon Convention Center. The vote authorizing negotiations with the team follows the recommendation of its executive director and, prior to that, a citizen-led committee formed to review the proposal.

The city agency spent about $10 million acquiring the land for the project and has long been a strong proponent of the project as a way to increase the size of conventions the city can draw and build on an economic impact that in 2003 totaled $490 million. But the agency has backed off in recent months in the face of monied opposition by Downtown hotel owners who have benefited from the city not having a large hotel adjacent to the convention center.

The PDC has since downsized the minimum first phase of the hotel from 600 rooms to 400 rooms, putting in question its usefulness as a headquarters hotel. Most large convention planners require a room block of at least 500 rooms. Now, because of concerns about the amount of public subsidy that may be required, other components of the plan may be up for downsizing.

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