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Wyndham tries to fit into Pearl
Portland Design Commission wants hotel to do more to engage with the public
POSTED: 04:00 AM PDT
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
BY SAM BENNETT
The new Wyndham WorldMark building at Northwest 14th Avenue and Northwest Irving Street will be a first for the Pearl and a first for Wyndham.
Still in the design stage, the Wyndham WorldMark will be the company’s first built-from-the-ground-up membership-based resort in an urban setting. That fact has caused concern among members of the Portland Development Commission, who worry that the project will have the look and feel of a gated community and will not engage the public.
The lead developer for the project is Opus Northwest and the architect is SERA Architects.
Wyndham, which has WorldMark hotels around the country and the world, runs the facilities as resort hotels. The average stay for a guest is four days, according to Kurt Schultz, a principal with SERA Architects.
Wyndham has similar resorts in Sydney, Australia; Anaheim, Calif.; Santa Fe, N.M. and the Cayman Islands.
The hotel will have 115 units and be six stories. It will be a half-block development between Irving and Johnson streets (the southern half of the block) and 14th and 15th avenues. Irving Street, on this block, has been converted to a pedestrian zone.
A challenge for SERA Architects and Schultz has been to integrate the building design into traditional Pearl District warehouse architecture, while also giving it the look of a WorldMark resort. The design has come before the Portland Design Commission twice for design advice request meetings.
Commissioners have, in general, requested that the design be simplified to reflect the historic Pearl district designs. They also have requested that the resort not have the appearance of being “segregated,” as one commission member said, from the rest of the Pearl.
Design Commission member Tim Eddy called for a simplification of materials at the early October meeting. Under the most recent proposal, the building would have brick, stucco, metal and glass on the façade. Commission members requested that more brick and less stucco be used.
Members said that, in addition to changing the balance of materials used, they would like to see the resort create a more active frontage and open itself up to the Pearl. The resort, according to commission member Andrew Jansky, should “embrace the neighborhood and allow people to flow in and meander through.”
For buildings in the Pearl District, the public realm is the ground floor of the building and should include attractions like stores or cafes, they said.
Wyndham is planning a sales office on the Irving Street side, which is also where the main lobby would be.
Bruce Levy, a member of the Pearl District Neighborhood Association, said the neighborhood’s goal is to be a “bicycle district,” and he urged SERA Architects to offer bikes at the resort.
“I can’t emphasize enough the need to discourage the use of autos in the neighborhood,” Levy said. He also requested that the building have a green roof.
Schultz said there are no plans for a green roof, but the building will be designed to achieve LEED silver.
The resort will include a ground floor courtyard, but it will not be open to the public. Commission members said the courtyard should be open to the public.
In response to a commission member’s advice that the courtyard be moved to the second level, Schultz said that would not be possible. But he said he would take the other design recommendations to his clients for review. Opus Northwest could not be reached for comment.
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