Article by Todd Matthews

What does the future hold for the 80-year-old, 12-story Winthrop building downtown? Will it be a blended mix of market-rate condominiums and low-income, affordable housing as envisioned by developer AF Evans? Or will it return to its earlier status as a historic, four-star hotel envisioned by two Pacific Northwest developers -- Tim Quigg and Chester Trabucco -- currently scrambling to put together a deal?

Those questions will likely be answered next month, when the first hurdle in an agreement with developer AF Evans giving Quigg and Trabucco 30 days to decide whether to purchase the building expires. The deal, which was inked Sept. 19, was contingent upon Tacoma City Council passing a resolution that evening directing City Manager Eric Anderson to negotiate a $1 million Urban Development Action Grant loan with AF Evans should hotel development plans fail. A sharply divided Tacoma City Council voted 5-4 in favor of the resolution.

The only thing that saved Spokane's once-derelict Davenport Hotel from a wrecking ball was its high concentration of asbestos. "It was too dangerous to blow up, and too dangerous to tear down," says Davenport Hotel spokesman Tom McArthur.

Today, Quigg and Trabucco are expected to make a $250,000 deposit toward the hotel's $6.1 million purchase price.

Can Quigg and Trabucco complete a development deal that would turn the Winthrop into a historic hotel? That depends on if enough investors who agree such an idea would pencil out in Tacoma can be assembled (according to Quigg, Coast Hotels is one of several partners working to complete the deal).

Still, one perspective on the issue can be found at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane, Wash. Tacomans who wish to see the Winthrop restored to its earlier incarnation often point to the Davenport as an example of what the Winthrop could be. Both cities are comparable in size. Both have historic hotels. But Spokane has renovated and reopened its hotel into a profitable business venture.

"If Spokane can do it, certainly Tacoma can do it," says Tom McArthur during a telphone interview Thursday. McArthur, a former newspaper reporter who fell in love with the hotel nearly a decade ago, now serves as its communications director. He sees similarities between the two hotels: both were neglected over the years, ignored by locals, and touchstone reminders of each city's downtown blight.

"The Davenport was dark, stinky, and just kind of a woebegone, awful place," says McArthur, who moved to Spokane in 1984, a year before the hotel closed. "It was no surprise the Davenport was closed. The community, by and large, forgot about it."

McArthur remembers a headline in the Spokane Spokesman-Review -- 'Experts See Little Hope for Saving Davenport.'

"A demolition crew walked through the building and decided it could drop the entire structure in 20 seconds," he adds. Still, two things saved the Davenport.

First, the building was full of asbestos. "It was too dangerous to blow up and too dangerous to tear down," says McArthur.

Second, a single investor with deep pockets. The Davenport's owner put the building off-and-on the market for 15 years before commercial real estate mogul Walter Worthy and his wife, Karen, decided to write a check. They purchased the building in 2000 for $6.5 million, and spent another $40 million (and two-and-a-half years) on renovations.

The Worthys applied to the National Park Service for a text credit ranging from $6 to $10 million, but were denied. Renovations were so extensive that the park service felt too much of the building's original fabric did not meet its historic definition. Indeed, McArthur cautions any investor looking at the Winthrop as a hotel possibility to consider aging infrastructure of such an old building. It's a factor that turned earlier investors away from the Davenport.

"Some of [the Worthys'] consultants said, 'Run, don't walk, away from the Davenport. It's going to be a money pit,'" explains McArthur. "But Walt believed otherwise. He had this feeling -- this idea -- that Spokane's better days were ahead."

Like most Tacomans who want to see the Winthrop restored as a historic hotel, Worthy had a sentimental connection to the old building. A retired survival school instructor at Fairchild Air Force Base, Worthy had his first date with Karen, a former third-grade elementary school teacher, at the Davenport in 1970.

McArthur says Worthy's iconoclast spirit can be traced back to an earlier development deal that left skeptics scratching their heads and, in the end, helped bankroll the Davenport. Worthy purchased a patch of land north of the Spokane River that many people described as chock full of rocks and boulders -- an impossible spot on which to build.

"When you tell Walt he can't do something, he'll find five ways to prove you wrong," says McArthur.

Instead of blasting away the rocks, Worthy built an office complex atop the rugged terrain. Revenue from the center helped pay for the Davenport and its renovation. Last year, Worthy sold Rock Pointe Corporate Center for $83 million. Today, the Worthys own the Davenport outright.

While Tacoma has no plans to demolish the Winthrop, nearby merchants and residents complain worse has happened: the building is poorly managed and a hub for criminal activity.

"The Winthrop is on the top 10 calls for service list and has been for the last several years," says Tacoma Police Sector One (which includes downtown) Commander Lt. Corey Darlington. "It's one of the top utilizers for emergency services out of all apartment complexes in Tacoma. It's obviously a problematic location."

McArthur says Spokane had the same issues -- particularly around a then-abandoned Davenport.

"Downtown Spokane was not a good place for many years," he says. "Now that we have brought people to the core and street life to the city, it's become a much safer place. I think the Winthrop could help revitalize Tacoma."

Was the Davenport always destined to be a historic hotel?

McArthur says no. He recalls discussion about turning it into an expansion site for Eastern Washington University. Then there was talk of turning it into office space. It wasn't until a grassroots group, Friends of the Davenport, pushed for historic renovation that the idea of having a four-star historic hotel downtown took flight.

"They kept the legacy alive," he says.

After a shaky start (the hotel sold-out opening night, then sat empty for awhile), the 283-room hotel boasts 80 percent occupancy on average. A second tower with 328 additional rooms will be completed next May.

"The Davenport is not a hotel," says McArthur. "It's a time machine. I think the same could be said for the Winthrop. It takes you back."

This article originally appeared in the 22 September 2006 edition of the Tacoma Daily Index