Death by delay for Foss hotel?

A hotel on Tacoma’s Thea Foss Waterway has been a dream for nine years. Financial factors – including the current recession – have killed past attempts to turn that dream into reality.

This time, Tacoma might have its own City Council to blame for killing the latest effort to create a hotel on the urban waterfront.

Two hotels, actually. Bellingham-based Hollander Investments is proposing to build a Marriott Residence Inn and a Hilton Garden Inn – plus an office complex – in the gap between Thea’s Landing and the Esplanade. Hollander is a respected, successful hotelier, and it’s got the cash in hand to get the job done.

This should be a private deal subject to reasonable regulations, such as ensuring a design that doesn’t cheapen the waterfront. Hollander would buy the site from its current owner and acquire his hard-won shoreline building permit.

If Hollander’s designs pass muster – as expected – with the Foss Waterway Development Authority’s architecture review board, city officials ought to welcome the project as the realization of a long-deferred vision. It would take the Foss a long way toward being the vibrant, busy attraction it was meant to be.

But some members of the Tacoma City Council are suddenly balking. Part of the reason: Hotel workers’ unions want Hollander to fast-track the unionization of the hotels’ staff. Some councilmembers are sympathetic, but it’s a non-starter for Hollander.

Also, some on the council want a hotel with more stars than the mid-market Marriott and Hilton. So do we all. But the much desired boutique lodging hasn’t materialized in nine years, and there’s no evidence it’s going to materialize in the next nine years.

The council’s one point of leverage is what was to be a routine agreement to assume responsibility for any further cleanup of old contaminants on the site. Without that indemnification, the project dies.

The council last week postponed a decision to approve the cleanup agreement. It will consider the question again tonight. Further stalling may well torpedo the hotel plan entirely.

The crucial shoreline permit expires in March. If Hollander can’t break ground before then, the expensive, lengthy permitting process must start over from scratch. In that case, the city will likely again wind up staring at that gap on the Foss, wondering when another developer with deep-enough pockets might show an interest in it.

Time is of the essence. Hollander would need almost all of the time between now and March to get through the architectural review and other requirements. So the council can kill the plan while pretending not to, simply by doing nothing about indemnification.

If it does do nothing, there should be no mistaking what it’s really doing.