Possible Sale of The Winthrop... Again

The Winthrop Hotel building on Broadway in downtown Tacoma is one of those properties that we've covered a lot over the years. There has been a lot of rumor and speculation, quite a few proposed deals that ultimately fall through, and plenty of debate over the social issues related to the use of the historic building. 

And now The News Tribune is reporting another chapter in the ongoing Winthrop saga. According to the TNT, a California investment company has made an offer on the hotel. Actually, 16 prospective buyers made offers when the hotel was listed this spring, but California-based Redwood Housing Partners LLC's offer of $8.5 million is the front-runner.

Prium has been sitting on the 90-year-old hotel-turned affordable housing building since 2006. A federal trustee is in charge of the sale, following Prium's 2010 bankruptcy.

Despite hopes that the Winthrop would be redeveloped as a hotel or market-rate housing, it looks like this proposal, which came in at the highest dollar amount, is for continued use as affordable housing. 

According to the TNT, ColRich, the California developer that purchased Chelsea Heights, made an offer to turn the building into market-rate residential, but that offer was just under the Redwood offer, and would have asked the City to forgive a $2 million loan associated with the Winthrop.

Will we see a renovated Winthrop in the near future? Given the history of not-quite-sealed deals for The Winthrop, we hope we can be forgiven for taking a we'll-believe-it-when-we-see-it approach. Sentences like this one from the TNT, about the little-known investment company, give us pause:

Details of Redwood’s plans for the Winthrop are unknown. Jensen called Redwood an “affordable housing investor” and said it planned to finance its $10 million upgrade using various tax-credit financing related to low-income and historic properties.

We'll see.

Read more from the TNT. And lots of previous Exit133 coverage of The Winthrop.