Portland Store Opens as Green Hotel
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Nov. 3, 2008
Once a department store, a 1908 building in downtown Portland, Oregon, has reopened as the city's newest luxury hotel. The Nines, which occupies the upper nine stories of the old Meier & Frank department store building, opened Oct. 16. Portlanders can still shop inside the landmark structure: Macy's occupies the first five floors.
When Sage Hospitality acquired the National Historic Landmark building in 2005, "it was pretty tired and worn out," says Don Eggleston, president of SERA Architects. His Portland-based firm preserved the exterior terra cotta exterior of the building and added a rooftop lounge.
"The difficult part was to get the room count [of 331 rooms]," Eggleston says. So the firm designed a nine-story atrium in the middle of the structure. "That becomes almost the signature piece of the building. You get borrowed light from the atrium, so we picked up about 50 rooms per floor that way."
Now that the hotel is done, architects are applying for LEED silver certification from the U.S. Building Council.
The $137 million project could recoup $35 million in historic tax credits.
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