This article is about the former Imperial Hotel in Portland, Oregon, that is now named Kimpton Hotel Vintage Portland. For the former Imperial Hotel in Portland that is now named Hotel Lucia, see New Imperial Hotel.
The Kimpton Hotel Vintage Portland, historically known as the Imperial Hotel and also as The Plaza Hotel, is a historic hotel building in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. It was completed in 1894 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 as "Imperial Hotel".[1] Since 2015, the building has been in use as the Kimpton Hotel Vintage Portland,[5] and prior to then it had been known as the Hotel Vintage Plaza since 1991.
History
Construction began in 1892, and the Imperial Hotel opened in March 1894.[4] The building is in the Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style.[4] It has also been known as the Wells Building, after one of its builders, George F. Wells.[6]
A major expansion was built in 1909 in the form of a separate building, adjacent, known as the New Imperial Hotel. At the end of 1949, the two buildings that had comprised the Imperial were made into separate hotels, when the new building was sold. The original, 1894 building was renamed the Plaza Hotel, while the newer building retained the Imperial name[4] (named the Hotel Lucia since 2002).
A glass false storefront was removed in a renovation done in the 1980s, revealing the structure's lower level stonework. The hotel's former name appears in the stonework above the Washington Street entrance.[11] By at least the early 1980s[6] the building's use as a hotel had ended, although it continued to be commonly referred to as the Plaza Hotel, and was in use as an office building, formally known as Wells Financial Center.[12] However, it suffered from a high vacancy rate, attributed in part to an excess of available office space in downtown Portland.[12]
The hotel closed for a two-month, $16-million remodeling in early 2015, and when it reopened in mid-March it was renamed the Kimpton Hotel Vintage Portland.[5]
^"Angell Elected Northwest Head — Agreement With Pacific Coast". The Daily Star-Mirror. Vol. 5, no. 57. Moscow, Idaho. December 4, 1915. p. 1. The Pacific Coast Intercollegiate conference, formed during the annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Intercollegiate conference, December 2, 1915, in view of the fact that three of its four members are also members of the Northwest conference, makes the following formal statement: