Historic Winthrop Hotel project another victim of recession

Stop me if this starts to sound familiar.

The owner of the historic Winthrop Hotel building in downtown Tacoma wants out and offers the building for sale.

Its condition and the difficult issue of relocating low-income tenants keeps the list of potential buyers small.

Hopes of restoring the apartment building to its 1925 glory as the region’s premier hotel and meeting facility grow dimmer by the day.

That was the situation for the 12-story Italianate tower at Ninth and Broadway six years ago. And after a local rescue was celebrated in 2006, it is again the situation today.

Prium Companies has quietly offered the Winthrop to the Tacoma Housing Authority. The Tacoma-based developer, who took on the project as a labor of love, is abandoning plans to relocate the tenants into new housing and restore the Winthrop as a boutique hotel.

Blame the recession. When times were good, Prium could take on a project outside its normal line of work. Now, it has enough trouble with condos it can’t sell and office buildings it can’t lease.

So the Winthrop is back to the future. Can a buyer be found? What is the best use? How can the tenants be best served? Is the building even savable?

As it did in 2003, the Housing Authority has taken a look.

“We don’t know yet if we want to buy it or can buy it,” said Michael Mirra, executive director of the authority. “It needs millions of somebody’s dollars.”

But while that makes authority officials shy, it also makes them worried. If Prium fails and another buyer isn’t found, “at some point the pigeons move in,” Mirra said. That means a loss of badly needed housing and another destructive hole in downtown – in effect, another Elks Lodge.

The status quo isn’t much better.

“The danger is that Prium has to sell and sells to someone who doesn’t care,” Mirra said.

THA chairman Ken Miller said the authority would like to restore the Winthrop for housing – both market-rate and low-income, both rental and condo. It also would like to include office space and retail space and restore the Crystal Ballroom for public events.

“We’d like to see if it could be a contributor to the economy of that part of downtown,” Miller said.

This is the Housing Authority’s second time around. It was outbid in 2004 by Oakland-based A.F. Evans, a developer that specializes in restoring historic buildings for low-income housing. Evans, in turn, was bumped aside after a group of local business people – led by Tim Quigg – advocated for a hotel conversion.

Quigg altered the politics of the issue by proposing replacement housing before conversion took place. That empowered the City Council to oppose Evans, which went away, but went away mad. Prium took over the project.

There are others taking a look now. Well, at least one other. Grace Pleasants of Heritage Properties, the developer that restored Albers Mill on the Foss Waterway, is looking for partners interested in the hotel conversion. If she or anyone else wanted to take a run at a hotel project, the Housing Authority would step out of the way.

But as Mayor Bill Baarsma said: “Of course expressing interest and putting money down are two very different things.”

The city has a role to play in approving state and federal loans. And it has been active in making sure whoever runs the building doesn’t again let it become a haven for drunks and druggies like those who harassed other tenants and neighbors for years.

“I still see drug dealing going on around the building but I have no more energy to track it and no one else seems to care,” said Laura Hanan, a neighboring business owner. She thought the management has improved but had its hands full.

Mirra gave no time line for a decision.

“We remain interested but uncertain.”

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com

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