PORT TOWNSEND — A boutique hotel to be located in a vintage downtown building could be open for business by late 2015, its developers hope.
“After many years of local, state and federal review, federal permits have been issued, and it’s now the appropriate time to announce that the project is underway,” said project manager Heather Dudley Nollette, whose family owns the building.
“We are looking forward to the time when the Hastings Building will be back in service to the community, as there are a lot of people who live here who have never been inside,” she said.
Hastings Estate Co. LLC aims to rehabilitate the 122-year-old Hastings Building at 940 Water St., and construct a five-story hotel and maritime terminal that will provide a gateway to Port Townsend, Dudley Nollette said.
The project involves the rehabilitation and adaptive re-use of the historic building along with construction of a new pier-supported structure where the Surf restaurant is now located.
No final costs or schedules have been set, but Dudley Nollette estimated that the project will cost more than $10 million.
The first phase of the project is the demolition of the restaurant, scheduled for summer 2014.
Dudley Nollette said she expects there will be public spaces that will be accessible to those who are not hotel guests.
Dudley Nollette said the project will add both economic and cultural value to the community.
The project team is working with federal, state and local historic preservation authorities in order to meet all their historic rehabilitation standards.
The permitting process has taken four years and cost upward of $1 million and included the city of Port Townsend, state Department of Fish and Wildlife, state Department of Ecology, U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, National Parks Service and state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation.
While not all of the permits have been acquired, “we are no longer at the point where denial of a permit will stop the project,” Dudley Nollette said.
The original owner of the building, Lucinda Hastings, was Dudley Nollette’s great-great-grandmother.
The property has been owned by the family since its construction. The top two floors have been vacant since World War II.
The Port of Port Townsend is completing a property swap with the city and will become the owner of Union Wharf, which will provide the water egress for the maritime terminal.
The plan is to rehabilitate the Hastings Building, with its two-story atrium, to include all of the hotel functions aside from the rooms themselves: retail, a restaurant and lounge, and conference space.
The new building will be 50 feet high, 7 feet shorter than the existing structure.
A single elevator will service both buildings, which will be connected by a skyway, and the outside of the new building will be architecturally compatible with existing downtown structures but “will not be a Victorian building,” Dudley Nollette said.
Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
