The Hilton goes under
You know things are bad when the biggest hotel in Portland is about to be auctioned off at the courthouse. Nobody with any sense wants to spend the night in downtown Portland. How far it fell, and how fast.
But hey, the mayor, Dud Wheeler, says "work with me." You do that and let me know how it goes.
Seven people though referred to Drug Treatment. Seven is a lucky number though so maybe it's a sign.
ReplyDeleteI have a brilliant idea. The city and Travel Portland can hire hundreds of Instagram influencers, who will then pretend to be tourists. The city can put them up at some of the local hotels that are hurting and let the influencers work their magic. Special consideration given to BIPOC influencers and from other underrepresented communities of course.
ReplyDeleteThe “tourists” will then take thousands of photos to put up on their Instagram and Facebook pages. Flood social media with thousands of professional photographs showing our ‘tourists’ doing Portland kinds of things. Such as strolling one of our diverse neighborhoods (actually taken from Travel Portland’s website) whilst eating their koi pizza and drinking their alfalfa milkshakes. Those empty hotels will fill up fast!
Most "hybrid" workplaces are "three in, two out" models. That's an instant 40% decline in the need for commercial real estate. Among MANY reasons I left Portland in late 2020 was knowing I would never be going back to an office. Ever.
ReplyDeleteThis is much less a Portland story than a national one. The office is toast. Cities have a generational opportunity to reshape themselves. Portland badly needs a leader who see Fareless Square for the blank canvas that it is.
all those years I worked downtown though, I never stayed in a hotel while doing it. So ... faux pas, kinda. it's the tourists, not the office drones, who aren't staying in the Hilton. amazing news either way.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget business travel. Everyone's working at home, so there's no need to travel anywhere for work. Hotels were never there for tourists.
DeleteExcept that Portland hasn’t been a “business” kind of town for quite some time. This is not Atlanta, Chicago, or Dallas. All of the hotels that have came online during the last decade have mainly been aimed at tourists. A foreseeable glut......but a glut nonetheless.
DeleteMake it a house less shelter but only for the top tier homeless the best of the worst so to speak.
ReplyDelete