The stalled Foss Waterway hotel project could be getting new life soon from an experienced Tacoma hotel developer.
Hollander Properties LLC is considering buying the hotel site on the west side of the near-downtown Thea Foss Waterway at South 15th Street.
Hollander is the owner of downtown Tacoma’s newest hotel, the Marriott Courtyard Tacoma.
Hollander partner Mark Hollander this week told the Foss Waterway Development Authority the investment company’s preliminary plans call for construction of a 200-room Marriott or Hilton hotel on the waterfront site.
He asked the development authority to begin the process of assigning the site’s development agreement to his company. That development agreement sets the rules and deadlines for redevelopment of the site.
The authority has scheduled a special meeting June 30 to consider the request.
If Hollander acquires the site between the Esplanade condominium project and the Foss Landing condominiums, it will be the third developer to take swing at making the hotel project happen.
The site’s first hotel development company dropped out soon after the waterway authority picked a winner in a contest to earn the development rights to the site.
Seattle hotelier Robert Thurston then assumed the responsibility and worked for four years trying to find a building design that would be both profitable and financible.
Thurston’s designs ranged from a boutique hotel project to various mixes of hotel rooms, luxury condos and retail spaces.
In the end, the recession killed Thurston’s opportunity for financing, and he put the site on the market earlier this year.
Don Meyer, the waterway authority’s director, said having Hollander as a developer for the site potentially is a “huge plus for the waterway.”
Hollander owns five hotels in the Puget Sound region, including a Best Western in Puyallup.
Meyer said the authority may rewrite the development agreement to ensure that whatever is built on the site conforms to the authority’s updated standards. The authority may remove the requirements in the present development agreement to include retail uses in the project.
The waterway area is awash in vacant retail spaces built as part of earlier projects.
Hollander said he doesn’t want to make promises yet about what could happen on the site and even whether his family’s company will acquire it.
“This is a nice site with great potential, but it’s an extremely complicated deal with the permits needed, the economic situation and the potential neighbor issues,” he said.
“We’re a very successful company, but very cautious too,” Hollander said.
John Gillie: 253-597-8663
john.gillie@thenewstribune.com
