EVERETT – The city’s largest hotel reopened Wednesday with a new name and a new look after a year and millions of dollars of renovation work.
The Holiday Inn Everett checked in its first guests by afternoon, and the restaurant served a few curious customers and some of the construction workers still finishing last-minute details.
Eric Fetters / The Herald
Doug Bartells, the hotel’s general manager, said the hotel will host its first group later this week.
John McCracken, a partner with the hotel’s management firm, Seattle-based Chambers Lodging, said he was getting inquiries from groups that previously had stayed only in Seattle inns. With its all-new decor and upscale touches, he said, the Holiday Inn can now compete for that kind of business.
“That would be fresh money coming into the community,” McCracken said.
Bellevue businessman Tommy Lu paid $5.6 million for the seven-story, 250-room hotel in fall 2004. It was then operated under the Howard Johnson name.
Eric Fetters / The Herald
At that time, it looked shabby. Nearly all the building’s central ventilation units weren’t working, the carpet and furnishings were old, and the gray exterior was drab.
Lu immediately shut down the property at 3105 Pine St., launched an extensive renovation and gained approval from InterContinental Hotels to affiliate with the Holiday Inn brand.
Construction workers stripped the building down to bare walls and floors, installed new mechanical and kitchen systems, and added a new entrance. Each room also was thoroughly remodeled, new windows were installed on the I-5 side of the building, and the outside was painted in bright colors.
During the past week, workers put in 250 bathroom vanity mirrors in just three days, after their production and shipping were delayed by the Gulf Coast hurricanes.
Not everything was done when the hotel passed its final inspection and opened its doors on Wednesday. A worker tried to fix the main lobby’s fountain, which had developed a leak. And the hotel’s Holiday Inn signs hadn’t arrived.
But the new restaurant, Pine Street Grille, was serving food, and staff members were setting up the main ballroom for a meeting.
McCracken said the hotel, which employs about 80 people full time, will have a ribbon-cutting at 3 p.m. Dec. 9, with a grand opening in January.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
Eric Fetters / The Herald
Above, Doug Bartells, general manager of Holiday Inn Everett, shows off the renovated main lobby. Below, reservations clerk Kim Pierce began checking in guests on Wednesday.
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