PORT TOWNSEND — It’s official: The Northwest Maritime Center has begun the new year with the purchase of the Swan Hotel.
The $2 million purchase from Cindy and Joe Finnie closed on New Year’s Eve. Plans had been announced in June to purchase the 13-room boutique hotel next door to the Northwest Maritime Center (NWMC).
The five Swan staff members are being kept on by the nonprofit, which, for the foreseeable future, will operate the hotel as usual with funds going to support NWMC’s educational programs.
“The purchase of the Swan is a realization of a two-part strategy for us,” said Jake Beattie, maritime center executive director, in a press release.
“First, it allows us to increase our offseason programming by linking them to lodging revenue, and second, it secures a long-held aspiration to expand the NWMC campus.
“Since the moment we opened our doors in 2010, we started running out of space. This gives us room to grow.”
Since opening, the NWMC has offered dozens of youth and adult classes, camps and workshops, the Northwest Maritime Academy and the Maritime High School.
The nonprofit center, based in its 24,750 square feet of buildings on the nearly 1-acre campus at the foot of Water Street, also hosts regattas, races, swap meets, the “She Tells Sea Tales” night of storytelling and the Girls’ Boat Project.
The Maritime Heritage Corridor will be preserved, Beattie said, as the seaside area the Swan occupies will continue to be oriented toward maritime tourism.
Renovations are slated for later this year to transform the center’s existing retail space into more of a visitor and registration center for hotel guests and class attendees.
Cindy and Joe Finnie sold the hotel as part of their retirement.
“Joe and I are thrilled that the Swan will be a part of the future of the Northwest Maritime Center,” said Cindy Finnie, in the release.
“We have watched NWMC develop into a thriving organization that serves the maritime community. It was important that the Swan is in the hands of folks that would be a good steward of the property, recognizing the importance to this end of town.”
Acquisition of the hotel is a new aspect of the center’s expansion plans.
On July 1, the center’s 30-year lease from the Port of Port Townsend took effect on the parking lot where the Landfall restaurant once stood to build a 3,000-square-foot building for new programs and classes. The rent is $1,337 per month.
For more about the Swan Hotel, see www.nwmaritime.org/theswanhotel.
