PORT ANGELES — Long-delayed plans to build a 106-room hotel in downtown Port Angeles are back on track.
The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe has submitted land- and shoreline-use permits for the $25 million project to the city Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), tribal project manager Michael Peters said Friday.
“We hit a major milestone,” he said.
“It has been received well by the city.”
The four-story hotel, which will face East Front Street toward the Olympics, North Laurel Street west and East Railroad Avenue north overlooking Port Angeles Harbor, will take 18 months to two years to build once permits are approved, Peters predicted.
The hotel will create 65 jobs that will generate $1.9 million in wages annually, according to the conditional use application.
A maximum 28-day period for DCED review of the applications’ completeness began Friday, after which public comment and hearing examiner hearing dates will be set, Community Development Manager Emma Bolin said Friday.
Conditional-use and shoreline variance permit applications that will be heard by a hearing examiner would allow the project to exceed a 45-foot building height limit up to 60 feet.
A hearing examiner will decide on the CUP and variance. The state Department of Ecology will decide on the shoreline variance.
DCED Director Alysson Brekke said Thursday in a text message that the applications have been deemed “counter complete,” or ready for review.
“We don’t want someone to submit an application with any glaring omissions,” Bolin said.
“It’s a big project. We’re really excited to go through the process. It’s still early in the process.”
Peters said the tribe is “real close” to satisfying state Department of Ecology requirements for removal of polluted soil at the gravel-covered, fenced site, where 8,000 tons of soil have been trucked away.
According to the conditional use permit application, the hotel will be 81,288 square feet. It will include a 3,000-square-foot restaurant and kitchen, a swimming pool and 36 off-street parking spaces along North Laurel Street.
Plans for a parking garage were discarded.
“The project’s market study recommends a hotel of 85-plus rooms to obtain a reasonable rate of return, but due to the highly constrained real estate available and additional cost to remediate the site of soil contamination, a third level of rooms (a fourth floor) is required for economical viability,” the application says.
“Solar studies have been conducted showing that the shadows created by the additional height are negligible when compared to a hypothetical building that is built to the 45-foot height limit.”
Views from downtown buildings and streets, and from the bluff to the south that borders the downtown area, “are not significantly affected by the additional height,” according to the application.
“Views of the harbor and Strait are essentially unchanged when compared to a hypothetical building with the same footprint area built to the 45-foot limit throughout.”
In developing the site, the tribe has already removed several deteriorating downtown structures and excavated the polluted soil, “resulting in a property that is significantly improved from an environmental standpoint,” according to the application.
Budget Rent a Car was razed, as were Necessities & Temptations gift shop, the Cornerhouse Restaurant & Lounge, the Downtown Hotel, Harbor Art Gallery and Winters Garage. The garage, which housed an oil and gas company, used underground tanks.
The hotel will provide six times more hotel rooms than the Downtown Hotel, according to the application.
“It is a fundamental mission of the hotel to strengthen the vitality of downtown Port Angeles through provision of a modern four-star hotel which serves as a catalyst to support existing and planned commercial, recreational and tourist developments in the area,” the application says.
The hotel’s primary entry point will be two driveways off North Laurel Street that would access a surface parking lot so traffic is not impeded on Railroad or Front, according to the application.
The hotel has the potential to generate $104,000 in sales taxes and $68,000 in business and occupation taxes, with $1.5 million generated by construction, of which the city would realize $390,000, according to the application. City permit and inspection fees would total $105,000.
According to the State Environmental Policy Act application, the hotel will work with Port Angeles Waterfront Center development for lodging support and, for parking needs, with Bellevue developer Eric Dupar, whose Anian Shores, a multi-use garage-condominium project a few blocks away, has yet to be permitted.
The three parcels that total 1.16 acres at the site will provide space for the hotel on two parcels and surface parking and outdoor seating on a third parcel. All three parcels are at 101-111 E. Front Street.
“The Hotel intends to work in coordination with the city for utilization (with compensation) of city-owned and privately owned downtown parking lots so as not to encumber on-street parking used by businesses,” according to the application.
The hotel will sit on more than 10 feet of fill from a former hillside south of the property.
“Liquefaction and tsunami potential are [the] only known geologic hazards,” according to the shoreline permit application.
There are no plans for additions or expansions to the hotel, according to the application. The site will contain 90 percent of impervious surface compared with more than 95 percent covered by the demolished buildings.
The hotel will be built with brick, metal-fiber cement panels and treated wood.
It will generate about 585 vehicle trips daily.
Construction will be put on hold at the Field Arts & Events Hall at the Waterfront Center in mid-March due to a slowdown in contributions being felt by entertainment venues nationally, Waterfront Center organizers say.
But the shell of the building is there, ready to be completed, Peters noted.
The Elwha hotel has experienced similar delays as Field Hall is about to endure, at one time planning to open by summer 2020, Peters recalled.
“Imagine what a setback it would have been had the hotel opened and had to close during the summer or work with reduced occupancy during that period of time,” he said.
“It is working out, not the way we wanted, but it is working out fine.
“Who knows, we may still be opened up in the same time frame.
“We took a break,” Peters said, “and now we are ready to go.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
