PORT TOWNSEND — The next step in the rehabilitation of a historical building and the construction of an adjacent hotel can be taken now that the end of a yearslong permitting process is in sight, the project’s developers say.
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 next-door.
“The time is right for this now,” Heather Dudley Nollette, project manager, told Port of Port Townsend commissioners at a workshop Wednesday.
“We haven’t been able to get investors interested as long as we didn’t have the permits.
“Now that we will have them, we have several possibilities.
“I don’t think we will have any trouble raising the money for this project.”
No final costs or schedule has been determined, but Nollette estimates that the project will cost upward of $10 million and could take about two years to complete, once work begins.
The permitting process has taken four years and cost about $1 million, Nollette said.
“This has been a ‘perfect storm’ of permitting,” said Harry Dudley, who serves on the board of directors with his wife, Zoe Ann Dudley, and his sister, Lucinda Eubank.
“Every state and federal agency has needed to vet the project to make sure that it meets their individual requirements, and each one has a different concern.”
“We have dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t,’” Zoe Ann Dudley said.
“We have done everything by the book.”
The agencies requiring permits include the city of Port Townsend, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, the state Department of Ecology, the U. S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, the National Parks Service and the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation.
The Army Corps of Engineers now is inspecting all of the permits, with final approval expected in a few months, Nollette said.
The company is a family-owned business. Nollette is the Dudleys’ daughter.
The original owner of the building, Lucinda Hastings, is Nollette’s great-great-grandmother.
The property has been owned by the family since its construction, with the top two floors 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.
“We expect this will be a gateway to Port Townsend and Jefferson County,” Nollette said of the new facility, which will be built as the ground floor of the new hotel.
“It will be the commercial heart of the downtown district.”
The plan is to rehabilitate the existing building, which includes a 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, Nollette said.
The outside of the new building will be architecturally compatible with existing downtown structures but “will not be a Victorian building,” Nollette said.
Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
