Ground Breaking Soon for Foss Hotel... Maybe...

Plans for a new hotel on the Foss Waterway have been in the works for a while, with numerous challenges arising. Now The News Tribune is reporting that work could begin on the long-awaited Foss hotel project “within the next month.”

According to the TNT permits for grading and excavation are expected to be issued by the end of May, which means work could start shortly thereafter. Plans are to put a Marriott Residence Inn on the site between the Esplanade and Thea’s Landing. If that project is a success, Hollander would follow it with another hotel on the north end of the site, and a connecting office structure in between.

Hollander Investments, which also owns the Marriott Courtyard next to the Convention Center in Downtown Tacoma, has been working to put a hotel on the Foss site for several years now, but has met with a challenges from the Providence Hotel group and unions leading to delays and plan changes and more delays. Ultimately those challenges were dismissed, but not without a lengthy struggle.

If the Hollander hotel project indeed breaks ground by the end of the month, and plans for the mixed-use development called The Henry get the go ahead, we could be seeing a lot of changes coming to the Foss. With the Holiday Inn Express across from UWT nearing completion, and plans in the works for the McMenamins Elks project and a Silver Cloud hotel at Point Ruston, Tacoma may be getting some of those hotel rooms we keep hearing that we need…