By Scott Unger • Of the News-Register • 

No appeal filed for Gwendolyn

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Comments

Bill B

Geary and Garvin will be happy.

TTT


Geary and Garvin are happy ... because they don't want jobs for local citizens? They don't want increased transient lodging tax? They don't want local construction companies working?

The opposition to this project is still confusing. If it were proposed by a local townie it would have sailed through.

Rds

TTT- they won't be local companies doing the work as there are none able to do a job of this magnitude. Would be nice but any big job goes to out of town companies.

BigfootLives

A block north or a block south and the project gets approved. Same as for the Atticus. You will die by the same standards everyone else is forced to live.

Why not a class action lawsuit by the building owners in the historic district to bust its hold on the business decision downtown? I would think the support would be there for that.

Oregonian

The buildings will one day come down and something awful will go in their place. Just look at the Shadden Claim neighborhood development.

GrizzlyMountain

“Frischmuth said he has been contacted by parties interested in the building but hasn’t made any steps to sell.

‘I am currently not planning on putting my property on the market,’ Frischmuth told the News-Register.”

Isn’t it odd that the owner of one of these dilapidated, un-sellable urban blights has been approached by multiple potential purchasers but isn’t interested in selling or putting the property on the market?

Didn’t the developer argue that the hotel should be approved because no one else was willing to buy the properties?

Why on earth would these owners want to retain property that results in “economic hardship” to own?

Also, I was assured by multiple individuals on the these forums and on social media that the proposed demolitions and hotel development were clearly allowable pursuant to state and local law.

Why would the developer choose to walk away and not let LUBA set the city straight when they have undoubtedly sunk (at least) tens of thousands of dollars into design, engineering, legal, and other costs?

I have many unanswered questions.

sbagwell

Grizzly: The buildings are neither unsalable nor unusable. However, unless they can be demolished to make way for something with much greater economic potential, they can't be sold or used for anything that amounts to much.
Selling for a pittance vs. retaining for current pedestrian uses could well be viewed as amounting to a wash, if not worse. The value is in the bare land lying below them, and it can't be realized for now.
As for LUBA, anyone who watched the local gravel mining case, landfill expansion case and multiple UGB expansion cases bounce back and forth among LUBA and the courts for a decade or two would have great hesitation about that route. Legal fees promise to make it a money pit.
You make it all sound so simple, so black and white. Actually, it's anything but. The issues run deep and feature lots of complicating factors.
As long as there is demonstrated demand for addition resort hotel capacity, someone will be trying to meet it. And I don't think renovating former garage and tire center operations housed in dilapidated, unreinforced turn-of-the-previous century buildings is ever going to prove a viable option.
Steve

Oregonian

I can't believe the mayor voted against this. I can't believe any mayor of any town considering such a project with massive job and tourism potential would vote against it.

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