PORTLAND, Oregon—Had a patron walked into the 14-story building on the corner of 5th and Morrison streets in downtown Portland, Oregon in 1935, he or she would have entered a bustling behemoth of a department store. Aptly called the Meier & Frank Building, the structure then housed the flagship store and corporate headquarters for the department store chain of the same name.
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| Guests enter the ground floor lobby before taking elevators up to the sixth-floor reception area. |
Fast forward more than 70 years later, and the store that once employed the likes of Clark Gable is but a fond memory. The Meier & Frank Building, however, lives on—albeit for a slightly more hospitable purpose. In August of this year, the 331-guestroom Nines hotel, a member of Starwood's Luxury Collection, opened its doors on the top nine floors of the building. The bottom floors are occupied by a Macy’s department store.
Hotel News Now sat down with GM Frederick Kleisner II to discuss the opening, how owner and developer Sage Hospitality Resources maintained the historical integrity of the structure, and how they integrated a sustainable design that is currently under review for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver Certification.
Hotel News Now: How long was the project under development?
Kleisner: If you ask the city of Portland, they would say it’s been about 10 years in the making deciding the fate of the Meier & Frank Building. Two-and-a-half years ago is when we broke ground on this, and between that 10-year point and two-and-a-half-year point is when the founders of Sage Hospitality Resources came to Portland and met with city officials.
HNN: How did Sage maintain the historical integrity of the Meier & Frank Building?
Kleisner: You take a building that was created in 1908 and that’s on the national registry of historic landmarks, and when Sage came into this—and we have a history of adaptive reuse projects—we looked at how do we give life to an iconic department store, Meier & Frank, and take it into its next phase? How are we going to do this and create a luxury hotel? …
… We decided that in order to do that we had to go through the top and gut it out. By doing so, we removed 24-million pounds of debris. We recycled 90 percent of it. We capped that seven-story atrium with light fill. We then realized we had to do a lot of seismic retrofit upgrades. …
… The original structure was 14 floors. We added a 15th floor, which we will open in 2009 as our modern Asian restaurant called Departure. …
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… If you add all that on there and still maintain the integrity of a structure from 1908 and the architecture, that’s (US)$137 million all in. What you look at on the outside is exactly that—we’ve maintained that structural and architectural integrity.
HNN: The Nines is currently under review for LEED Silver Certification. Are you planning to tout that in sales and marketing?
Kleisner: I think for us, the Nines, it’s a very natural progression. It’s not emblazoned in our marketing that we’re LEED certified. It’s not an in-your-face approach. It’s letting folks recognize just on their own as they see the dual-flush toilet, as they see the little touches, as they talk to staff and see the lack of outdoor lighting that’s intended to reduce the light pollution for the outdoors, when they start to talk to the staff, when they look at our urban farm and they see local and sustainable organic ingredients. When they start picking up on those little pieces, then I think it’s more powerful because we’re not trying to be boastful about it. We want it to be exactly as the city of Portland is, and that is that this city has been one of the greenest cities in the world for some time and hasn’t gone out there and said, ‘Hey, we’re Portland and we’re green.’
HNN: How is the Nines positioned amid the industry downturn?
Kleisner: I look today and say every business market is cyclical. Everything is happening for all kinds of reasons and we’re at one of those phases where there’s no rulebook for this. No one’s seen this kind of situation before. …
… At the same time, it’s critical that we maintain a nimbleness to react to it. Time will tell. I feel very confident that we’re heading in the right direction. The luxury suites, the desire for that, and people not blinking at the rate we’re selling is a pretty good indication that we’ve got the right brand and the right product at the right time.