The developers say it will be Walla Walla’s first “4+ Star” hotel. The Eastern Washington college town has hotels typically found in small cities, but the Marcus Whitman is the city’s only landmark property. The Penrose project site (28 S. Spokane St.) is near Whitman College.
The developers anticipate starting construction later this year and opening the Penrose in 2019. The project will have a restaurant, bar, meeting spaces, pool and rooftop terraces. It will be the city’s first “4+ Star” hotel and spa, according to the developers.
They say the hotel will embody the character of Walla Walla and emphasize the region’s wine and food at the restaurant and bar.
One of the developers, Seattle architect Stephen Day, said the group is in final discussions with a well-known Seattle restaurateur to be the hotel’s food-and-beverage consultant.
The project appears well timed with Walla Walla’s reputation as a premier wine-growing region reaching international stature and drawing more and more visitors.
Wine Enthusiast Magazine has named Walla Walla one of of the world’s top 10 wine destinations. Ron Williams, executive director of the Visit Walla Walla tourism bureau, said the number of tourists has been increasing by as much as 7 percent annually over the last 10 years and hit around 500,000 last year.
Yet Walla Walla, population 32,000, has only around 1,000 hotel rooms.
“That is not adequate to lodge the people who would like to come, especially during high season,” Williams said.
Day’s eponymously named architecture firm, which specializes in the restoration of historic buildings, is designing the project. No general contractor has been selected.
“It’s a beautiful old brick building that lends itself to the kind of adaptive reuse that I believe the Penrose people have in mind,” Williams said.
His project partners are Vince DePillis, founding partner of Real Property Law Group of Seattle, and hotelier Jim Treadway, past president of Westin North America and founder of Kirkland-based MTM Luxury Lodging.
Among the recent projects Treadway has been associated with are Woodinville’s Willows Lodge and and Hotel 1000, the Seattle hotel that sold for a record per-room price last year. The ownership group also includes hotel owners and investors, including Margaret Clapp, Frank and Marilyn Clement and Paul and Judith Gilliland.
Day declined to say how much the project will cost, but said the Penrose group bought the old building at the end of 2015 for $589,000.
Because the building is on the National Register of Historic Places, the development qualifies for a historic preservation tax credit that Day said will amount to several million dollars in equity. He said the developers have lined up financing, but declined to say who will provide it because the deal hasn’t been finalized.
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