PORT ANGELES — A motel owner embroiled in a controversy over the proposed waterfront conference center is exploring ways to compete against it.
Tod McClaskey Jr. recently bought a one-acre parcel next to his Best Western Olympic Lodge, at the city’s eastern border, with the idea the property could be home to a visitor center or lodging association.
“We will do whatever we have to do to survive,” McClaskey said Friday. “I want to see growth, too, but not at the expense of us and the other hotels.
McClaskey opposes the city’s attempt to build the waterfront conference center and says it forces him into the position of exploring other options.
Randal Jay Ehm, president of Ehm Architecture of San Diego and Seattle, is proposing a four-story, 165-room, $17.5 million hotel and conference center on 3.8 acres of downtown waterfront at the corner of Front and Oak streets.
The Port Angeles City Council has offered Ehm a 20-year, $100,000 annual subsidy from bed tax revenues, with conditions, to pay for marketing the convention center.
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The rest of the story appears in the Sunday Peninsula Daily News.
