Two Historic Buildings Slated For Renovation as Portland Hotel

Friday, February 06, 2015

Kai Soderberg, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Historic Woodlark & Cornelius Buildings from Alder Street

Portland-based companies, Provenance Hotels and NBP Capital, have announced plans to renovate two historic downtown buildings for use as a 150-room lifestyle hotel. They estimate the project completion date to be in 2016.

The plan is to connect the Woodlark building, on the corner of SW Alder and Park with the adjacent former Cornelius Hotel. Both buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Hotel has space for two leased Food and beverage outlets. The partners are exploring options for restaurant and bar options by tapping into Provenance Hotels’ extensive network of restaurants and bars in and out of Portland.

Both companies expressed equal enthusiasm in working with each other.

The renovations will cost an estimated $30 million. R&A Architecture & Design, Inc., Freir Architekt and MCA Architects will oversee architecture on the project. Staicoff Design Company of Portland has contracted to oversee interior design.

When completed, the project will be Provenance Hotels’ fifth hotel in Portland. The company also owns the Westin in Portland, owns and manages the Hotel Lucia, Hotel deluxe and Sentinel as well as Hotel Max and Hotel 1000 in Seattle, Hotel Murano in Tacoma, and Hotel Preston in Nashville. Provenance Hotels will also open the Old No. 77 Hotel & Chandlery in New Orleans in spring 2015.

Related Slideshow: Historic Places in Portland

These three Portland places are among the latest entries in the National Register of Historic Places. Learn about them here.

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The Heathman Hotel

The Heathman Hotel was constructed in 1926 in downtown Portland for hotelier George Heathman. The eleven-story hotel is located at the north end of the South Park Blocks and was joined by the New Heathman Hotel in 1927.

The hotel was designed by Portland architecture firm Claussen and Claussen and is clad in tapestry brick, finished in terra cotta trim. The two Heathman Hotels were among 184 new buildings, 38 of which were hotels, constructed in downtown Portland between 1915 and 1931. Today less than half of the 184 buildings remain.

The hotel was closed in the 1980's for building code violations and was then sold and modernized as affordable housing.

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The Hanthorn Apartments

The Hanthorn Apartments were constructed in 1910 in downtown Portland. The six-story building represents one of a collection of 'modern' apartment and office buildings that redefined downtown Portland in the construction boom following Portland's 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition.

The Hanthorn Apartments were also closed for building code violations in the 1980s and were then sold and modernized as affordable housing.

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The Honeyman House

The Honeyman House was designed by Portland architect David C. Lewis and constructed on Northwest Cornell Road, west of downtown Portland, in 1911. Walter Honeyman was a member of the second generation of the Honeyman family of Honeyman Hardware Company.

Architect David C. Lewis studied architecture in New York and Paris and is best known for his foreign exhibits building for Portland's 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition and the Oregon State building for Seattle's 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. He was admired in architectural circles for his 1907 Board of Trade Building in Portland. The Honeyman residence was published in Pacific Coast Architect in 1913.