Several members of the Central Albany Revitalization Area advisory board want the urban renewal agency to give financial support to restoring the former St. Francis hotel and adjacent Rhodes building. But after Wednesday’s meeting of the board, just how much the agency would pay was still unclear.
Architect Bill Ryals’ concept of the restored St. Francis Hotel with a roof-top restaurant and diagonal parking on Ferry Street.Renovating the former St. Francis Hotel in downtown Albany would cost $10-11 million, and when it’s done it would be worth $4-5 million. This means that for the project to go ahead, the CARA urban renewal […]
The city of Albany has finally made public its plan for the old St. Francis hotel building downtown. The plan is to buy the building from the printing company that owns it, and sell it to Marc Manley, who with his wife Anni owns and restored the Flinn Block farther east on First Avenue.
The former St. Francis Hotel, a downtown landmark for more than a century, was mentioned twice at last week’s meeting of the Albany Revitalization Agency. That’s the city council when it acts as the agency governing CARA, the Central Albany Revitalization Area.
Albany’s urban renewal agency will try to buy a downtown property. They don’t want the public to know which one, but it sounds like the building and parking lot of the former Wells Fargo branch on First Avenue.
Architecturally speaking, downtown Albany would be a more exciting place if there was a way to carry out any of several redevelopment designs worked up by students at the University of Oregon.
The St. Francis project: Taking a look
From the fourth floor of the old St. Francis Hotel, you have a fine view of downtown Albany and beyond. You could see even farther from the roof.
Tags: CARA, downtown Albany, downtown revival, Flinn Block, Historic buildings, historic hotels, Marc Manley, St. Francis, urban renewal