Beaverton breaks ground for Hyatt House
Beaverton breaks ground for Hyatt House, celebrates completion of 230-unit The Rise Central
Peter Wong
Saturday, May 25, 2019
Hotel, 230-unit apartment complex are near City Hall and Beaverton Central MAX station; Patricia Reser Center for the Arts and seven-story parking garage also planned in area.
Eighteen months from now, if all goes well, Beaverton will open a five-story, 125-room Hyatt House just steps from the Beaverton Central light-rail station.
With the completion of the 230-unit Rise Central apartments and the pending Patricia Reser Center for the Arts and a parking garage, all nearby, the hotel will help dramatically reshape the landscape of central Beaverton.
They will complete a vision laid out nearly a quarter century ago, when plans were first announced for the mixed-use housing, office and commercial development now known as The Round.
"We are building a vibrant urban center for residents and visitors to enjoy. It is becoming a reality. Just look around us. Think of what this place looked like back in 2009," said Mayor Denny Doyle, who took office that year.
"The Hyatt Hotel brings an extraordinary opportunity for downtown."
Doyle and others spoke during the May 22 groundbreaking for the hotel, which will be at the southwest corner of Crescent Street and Rose Biggi Avenue.
Ashish Patel of the Canterbury Hotel Group said the target for completion is the end of 2020 or early 2021.
"When I think about this project and this moment, it has been years in the making," Patel said. "For some of us, it's been much longer than others."
The Planning Commission approved the project eight months ago after a long process.
"I am impressed with the vision that the city has had," said Steve Deacon, chief executive of Deacon Construction of Portland, which is the contractor. "I am impressed even more with the persistence that you showed to make this happen."
Fulfillment of plan
The community vision plan that Beaverton adopted in 2010 laid out future mixed-use development, although initial construction at The Round had its problems. (The city bought the South Building in 2012 and converted it to City Hall in 2014.)
But ground was broken two years ago for the now-completed 230 units in The Rise Central (see separate story), and construction is expected to start on the arts center in the fall, assuming that fundraisers meet their overall target of $46 million. A seven-story parking garage for 350 cars will be built next to the center.
The past wasn't forgotten. Among those in the audience was Gene Biggi, 90, chairman of Beaverton Foods, whose mother was Rose Biggi. BG Food Cartel, home to more than two dozen food carts, sits at the southwest corner of Rose Biggi Avenue and Millikan Way just south of City Hall — near where Rose Biggi had her home and horseradish garden.
Metro, the regional planning agency, gave $500,000 to the project from federal grants it receives for transit-oriented development. The Beaverton Central MAX station is 200 feet from the hotel.
"It's an incredible partnership between the Canterbury Hotel Group and the city of Beaverton to take advantage of downtown's proximity to work, entertainment and leisure and make this place even stronger," said Metro Councilor Bob Stacey, who sits on the panel that evaluates applications for the grants.
Stacey said later than such grants usually are connected with housing, but they can contribute to other development along transit routes.
Beaverton is seeing a boom in hotel construction.
TownePlace Suites by Marriott, which has 112 rooms, opened in November at Highway 217 and Canyon Road.
Ground was broken April 23 for two hotels — AC Hotels by Marriott (117 rooms) and Element by Westin (107 rooms) — in the Cornell Oaks business park north of the Howard M. Terpenning Recreation Center in northwest Beaverton.
Two more hotels are in the planning process, according to the mayor's message accompanying the proposed 2019-20 city budget. They have not yet had public hearings.
Canterbury Hotel Group already manages nine Portland area properties, most near Portland International Airport.
They are in alphabetical order: Best Western Mount Hood Inn, Clarion Hotel/Airport, Econo Lodge Convention Center, Four Points by Sheraton/Portland East, Holiday Inn Express/Airport, Motel 6 Downtown Portland, Quality Inn and Suites Airport/Convention Center, Rodeway Inn/Airport, and SpringHill Suites by Marriott/Airport.
"This company knows this region," Doyle said. "They have established a track record of hotel development and management second to none in the Pacific Northwest."
The Rise Central project is completed
Central Beaverton has added 230 more apartments with the opening of The Rise Central.
Mayor Denny Doyle and others celebrated the completion of the project, which took two years to complete. Most are at market rates, but 15 of them are reserved for low-income people, usually earning less than 60 percent of the area median income.
Kira Cador, president of Rembold Properties, gave credit for them to Betty Bode, who ended 16 years as a Beaverton city councilor at the start of this year.
"I want to acknowledge the mark she left on this project," she said at the May 22 ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Cador, daughter of company founder Wayne Rembold, also acknowledged support from the city staff.
"They asked the tough questions to make sure we did the design right," she said.
Doyle said he has been able to see how the project has come along at the northwest corner of Crescent Street and Rose Biggi Avenue.
"It's really been fun watching it from the fifth floor of City Hall," he said.
"I am not alone in seeing downtown transformation happening. We are part of it. We are living it. This is a new era for Beaverton."
Also in the works are a five-story, 125-room Hyatt House, the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts and a seven-story parking garage next to it.
Rembold Properties also built The Rise Old Town, 87 apartments at 4545 S.W. Angel Ave. They were completed in 2017 at a total cost of $21.3 million.
Both developments are a mix of studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments.
The Rise Central, which is divided into two 115-unit buildings, has a few two-story townhouses.
For studios, the range is $1,298-1,368 monthly; one-bedroom units, $1,558-1,755, and for two-bedroom units, $1,758-1,976.
Portland property management company Greystar is handling leases.
About 30 units are already occupied.
The contractor was Pence Construction, which has offices in Portland and Salem.
Others in the audience were Councilors Cate Arnold, Lacey Beaty and Marc San Soucie, and Wendy Kroger, board member of Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District.
Metro, the regional planning agency, contributed $625,000 toward The Rise Central and $350,000 toward The Rise Old Town in the form of federal grants for transit-oriented development. Both are close to the Beaverton Central MAX station, and The Rise Old Town is next to Farmington Road.
Other Washington County projects that have benefited from grants are:
Jesse Quinn project, 78 apartments in Forest Grove completed last year, $250,000 of a total $15.5 million.
Cornelius, 45 apartments for people 55 and older atop the city library and youth recreation center, completed earlier this year.
Willow Creek Crossing, 121 apartments under construction near the Willow Creek MAX station.
Housing is for people who earn less than 60 percent of the area's median income.
Metro Councilor Bob Stacey said the program has awarded about $46 million in grants since it started in 998.
"The program invests moderate but significantly helpful amounts — usually in housing, but also mixed-use and retail space — to help locate development near transit that will yield benefits for the occupants and users of those developments and for the transit system," said Stacey, who sits on the panel evaluating applications for the grants.
"Housing close to transit means that more people can ride it."
