Regional leaders are hoping a private developer will build a hotel with at least 500 rooms near the Oregon Convention Center, which Metro owns.
Metro officials are just beginning to dive through the details of two proposals submitted Wednesday by development groups hoping to build a hotel near the Oregon Convention Center.
The proposals were in response to a call for developers interested in ensuring there were at least 500 hotel rooms available in the immediate vicinity of the Oregon Convention Center. Regional leaders have been pushing for the room block as a way to encourage more conventions at the center.
Two groups, one led by Lloyd District developer Langley Investment Properties and the other by Minneapolis-based Mortenson Development, submitted proposals to build a hotel. Metro declined to release the proposal packages to the media. Spokespeople for the development teams did not immediately respond to emails.
Teri Dresler, the director of Metro's visitor venues, said Thursday that both proposals seem viable after a first glance, but the hard work of financial analysis has yet to begin.
"We're in the process of engaging a financial consultant to help us untangle all those numbers and really look at what the bottom line is," Dresler said. "Because this is a big project, there's a lot of ifs, ands or buts to consider."
She said until that financial analysis is done, she couldn't guess what each group was proposing for the public investment in the project.
"I can't even ballpark it for you," she said.
Metro, which owns the convention center, has been working for years with Multnomah County and the Portland Development Commission to try and attract a hotel to the area. Earlier proposals faced political challenges in part because of their reliance on public financing.
In April, when Metro was preparing to issue the request for proposals, officials said the reason some public investment would be necessary was to ensure that the room block would be kept available for large conventions, whose organizers want to ensure there is enough space near the convention center to host attendees. Those rooms are often booked years in advance.
At the time, officials wouldn't say how much public money would be required to pull that off, but they hoped competitive bidding would give the public sector more leverage in negotiations.
Dresler said as many as five groups expressed interest in the project, and that Metro was expecting as many as three proposals to come in. Two did.
The Langley proposal includes Garfield Traub Development, a Dallas-based company that was part of the aborted effort to bring a 600-room Westin hotel to the convention center area in the late 2000s. They are partnering with Sheraton, which is part of Westin's parent company, Starwood Hotels and Resort Worldwide.
Mortenson's proposal teams with Schlesinger Companies, which owns land immediately north of the Oregon Convention Center. They're partnering with Hyatt Hotels Corp. for their project.
A 10-member evaluation committee is scheduled to start meeting next week to talk about what more information is needed before the review process can move forward. Dresler said she hopes to have a recommendation ready to present to the Metro Council, which ultimately will decide whether to move forward with the project, by Aug. 16.
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