REDMOND, OR -- Plans are underway to renovate one of Redmond’s tallest buildings and turn it into a boutique hotel. The New Redmond Hotel was built nearly 90 years ago, after the original Hotel Redmond burned down at SW 6th and Evergreen.
Community Development Director Kate Porsche says a California developer is in the process of buying the three-story building from its current owner. She tells KBND News, "It’s long been identified, in our various plans, as this substantial catalyst project for our downtown. It’s this enormous historic hotel, 46 rooms, that was built back in 1928. And, the rooms upstairs have been sitting vacant since 2005. The downstairs has been active - we’ve got some cool restaurants and things going on; but upstairs, nothing happening." But Alpha Wave Investors LLC plans to change that. Porsche says, "Their plan for renovation is that it’s this authentic historic building, but then with a fresh facelift and some contemporary features." 
Redmond is committing a million dollars of urban renewal funds to the project. "There are other funding sources coming into play, including federal historic tax credits and a state historic tax freeze. So, that’s more a matter of them filling out the paperwork and then doing the work in a way that’s still historically sensitive, which is exactly their plan." She says the hotel investment group will "Rehab the building, which is, I think, a treasure to us in Redmond; it’s part of our cultural history. It’s one of only three nationally registered buildings in Redmond. For us, this was a win-win, because it’s that pairing of the historic preservation component and then the reactivation, which we see as a huge benefit, economically, for our businesses, downtown: filling the rooms, bringing people in downtown. Because, when they’re staying, they’re shopping at the shops, they’re eating in the restaurants; they’re spending time in our great community."
She says the developer hopes to open it as a boutique hotel by 2019, with rooms costing about $120 a night. Once open, it will be downtown Redmond's only hotel.
