In mid-2019 it was announced that a Ritz-Carlton would be opening in Portland, Oregon. The hotel’s opening has been delayed significantly, but the property is now expected to welcome its first guests in the coming days.
Continue reading: Controversial 251-Room Ritz-Carlton Portland Opens
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Having spent quite a lot of time in Portland over the past decade and witnessed it's disintegration, if locals are worried about a new hotel - instead of being shocked that anybody would open one given the trajectory of the city - they have confirmed their backwards priorities. In any case, almost every business in Portland has gone remote because nobody wants to spend time downtown amidst the horrible street scenes, and I can't imagine there will be much uptake for business travelers for a luxury hotel unless something changes . . . and it won't.
Aren't there more important initiatives and improvements to worry about in Portland than a luxury hotel? Who cares what the locals think. Take action to reclaim your city right now, cause it belongs to the streets.
Ben, these new boarding area Salesforce ads (plus, STILL, the annoying video pop-ups) are making the site literally unreadable on mobile. Takes up half the screen and the Salesforce one doesn’t close when you click the X
Time to ditch their horrible hosting services and go off on your own?
This is where the parents who actually pay the rent of the vegan activists will stay when they come to visit.
You really missed the point of the piece.
This is about a Ritz, not reclaiming a city “from the streets” (whatever that even means).
As a Portland native, I can say this isn’t going to end well. Portland has long needed a good high-end hotel, but RC is not a good match for the city. On top of that, downtown Portland has become a war zone to rival Civic Center in San Francisco. Why would anyone stay in a hotel in that part of the city? It’s no wonder that Vitaly and Kimberly Paley closed their five restaurants and moved to Hawai’i. It’s just too hard to take care of customers in that kind of environment.
You really missed the point of my comment. Clearly you aren't my audience. Go home Lil' Willy.
So sad what happened to Portland. Used to be my favorite place to visit. Everyone was so relaxed, unpretentious, friendly. Now there are needles and sewage in the streets, and protesters open carrying rifles. I still want to move there, but the wife refuses because she feels unsafe there
I am amazed that this property / project went ahead. Portland is a disaster and will be for sometime to come. We closed down our Portland office due to the crime/street people and total lack of policing. It's just not safe there anymore.
As for the Ritz I wish them well, hope they have plenty of private security.
Ben, is there an easy way to find all those Marriott STARS etc programs on your page? I am not going to remember all of them by heart, but will need the info when making bookings (I am not loyal to any one chain, but always go by location first, so I don't hold any status with any of the hotel groups.)
As someone who splits their time in Portland, the city is not nearly the warzone it was 2 years ago and most of these comments (open-carry rifles: really???) are clearly made by people who need to stop reading Fox News. However, RC was still always a bad choice and downtown is a nonsensical location for it. Unlike many cities, most money and businesses (even the tourist attractions) are not in downtown proper. Other areas like the outer Pearl, Nob Hill, or the inner East side (where a Soho House is about to open) would have been much more logical. I anticipate the off season prices to plummet after the first year and then greatly look forward to a weekend at that point.
Have recently been to Portland and was by this site - would be surprised if they are successful given location, urban blight, decline in safety, and weak volume of tourism (compared to pre-pandemic). Good luck on this investment
It looks like it'll be a lovely place to house the "unhoused" or those with a "housing disability" in two years when it closes and the local government takes it over.
This hotel will do just fine. Professionals in real estate - investors and developers - have done their due diligence. The fact is any major city with a decently sized population is not that special. There certainly are people in Portland who are fiercely local, and the downtown is certainly not pretty, but this hotel was deemed likely to succeed despite those factors. Because there are plenty of well heeled travelers to Portland who will love a hotel like this. There are plenty of locals who will appreciate the job opportunities.
Chick fil A opened in NYC despite controversy but is thriving. Turns out for all the cosmopolitan progressive reputation the city gets, plenty of people hate gays and love fast food.
Meh - I think it’s fine. I live in Oregon (not Portland). Who cares if one expensive hotel opens if someone wants to build it? It looks nice - maybe I will stay there sometime. ♂️
A “general rule of thumb”… isn’t the nature of a rule of thumb that it is… general? 😉
I will be there November 1st and looking forward to it!! This will be my 18th Ritz Carlton worldwide and 148th Marriott Bonvoy property. Looking forward to seeing if it’s worth it and making review for it on YouTube to let you know!
I was in Portland last week and stayed a few blocks from this hotel. Walking to a restaurant for lunch about 130, I switched to the opposite sidewalk because two guys directly in my path were openly blazing and puffing off a glass pipe (meth? crack?). Another block away from that scene I was nearly knocked over by the overpowering smell of pot lingering in the air just outside a high rise I was going to.
Armed guards in riot gear were stationed outside my hotel overnight. Turns out they are hired police by city of Portland, since they can’t maintain enough numbers on the Portland PD, these guys came from Los Angeles, and do a week on and a week off. They said that restaurants in this area of downtown Portland close at 9pm because it’s too unsafe later than that.
I’ve been to this city probably 20 times over the years, and I can’t believe it’s gotten this bad. Very sad. Hope the RC is able to make it.
Yeah, the locals will complain about it and then quietly drop $500 a night for childless staycations while the kids are with the grandparents.... that indoor pool should do the trick.
Zero chance this hotel survives. Portland is run by the same ideology as San Fran, LA etc where crime goes unpunished. I guarantee they close within 1 year.
Wake up, west coast! Elect tough on crime city council, DA, mayors etc!
Cant wait to go there and get raped or abused by the homeless losers.
Let em burn.
We know these projects are planned years in advance.
An inauspicious time to open.
Check San Francisco hotel and business building closures.
A way of the times.
I think the Ritz will do fine. And Soho House is opening in Portland later this year too. There’s demand for better hotels in Portland.
If the controversy referred to is the alder street food pod… well yes this hotel replaced it, but there are several others around town. The food pod spring up on the site of an abandoned parking lot because the city had too much parking and the parking lot was unused. So from an urban planning and design standpoint (something Portland is known for…), it’s a big win to go from an abandoned parking lot to a hotel that injects more business and commerce into the city.
I'm sure the Mayor of Portland will have the homeless or illegals housed in this hotel by Christmas...
So the hotel is controversial because one OMAAT reader in 2019 suggested it would be?
I agree that it will do fine. Portland is in serious need of high end hotels. If still lived in the metro area (and I haven't since 2009), I'd probably be bothered by the sheer size of the building. I was in PDX last year and it strikes me that this building will dwarf the rest of the skyline.
I also think that RC's marketing was misguided. Northwesterners are sensitive, as many people see them (especially Portland), as unsophisticated. They're not (and while I lived there for 20 years, I'm not a native, having grown up in the NYC area and lived in 5 large coastal cities in the US so I think I have lots of perspective) and have an amazing and affordable food scene among other things. Clearly whoever sent wrote that message didn't do their homework.
Exactly. @Vinay has never been to San Francisco, as indicated by the reference to "San Fran." Just had a lovely stay at the St. Regis in the City. San Francisco certainly is not at its peak, but the luxury hotels are doing fine. The Hilton's operators walked away because business has been moving away from Union Square for decades and they're partly at fault. It has become a convention factory. I haven't stayed there in a decade and it was once my go-to. Therefore, in the down turn when occupancy was low, the better hotels closer to Market did well and the Hilton was empty and the problems moved their way.
Oh, and @Vinay, it's not Cali either. That one's free.
When I moved to Portland in the early 90's it was far worse than it is today. Yeah, they're going through a rough patch. If you haven't noticed, the whole country is seeing an increase in crime and homelessness. Hopefully, we'll find our way out this mess with policies that deal with the root of the problems that cause crime and homelessness. I have every confidence that with some good social policies, Portland will be coming back -- and you better hope so, because all they are is an early indicator of the challenges the rest of the country faces.
Yes Portland / PNW is home to fiercely loyal (think Alaska Airlines fanbase), non-flashy folks (think the Hyatt Centric a few blocks away).
The city also gets well-paid, urban techies who want a nice, sparkling new amenity. It also gets older retirees who want to see the secondary cities (Santa Fe, Tucson, Moab, Banff).
Whether Portland keeps homeless folks out of range will be a big factor if this property actually sticks or not, and I imagine the political leverage they have is not miniscule.
Agree with the other comments I am not sure what is so controversial about this. Also, while Ritz are known for their lounges it is not included even if you have status. In many ways I prefer the St Regis. The regular rate that would come with the STARS program vs member rate can be quite a big difference.
“overpowering smell of pot lingering in the air”
You sound like kind of a dork
I work for a national consulting firm and we are not allowed to book a hotel in Portland as a safety concern
Go read any review site. They have been bombarded with people complaining about gentrification and destroying the neighborhood. It's definitely not being opened without any controversy.
"They" didn't choose. This kind of thing should be known on this blog, you'd think, but Ritz-Carlton doesn't "decide" they want to "be" in a city. The developer (my dad) is a lifelong Oregonian who wanted to build a luxury hotel in the city he has called home for 81 years. Then he set out to find a hotel partner, which wasn't Four Seasons, because they weren't a good fit. That led to the Ritz-Carlton partnership. Otherwise, the entire building is owned by us investors and we assume the risk. In 2017 and 2018 when this was in planning, and 2019 when it started construction, there were no concerns about Portland suddenly having such major issues. After that, you take the cards you're dealt and do the best you can to make a gorgeous building and fill it up.
So sick of the rich! So out of touch and coddled. Just go away! Everyone is sick of you! All you do is exploit the tax code to get richer all the while the rest of us break our backs to pay all the taxes. Only your select group of a holes cares about you and your opinion.
I’d like to say that the people whose view you blocked are extremely disappointed in this high rise that wasn’t needed, especially after more downtown buildings have opened up! Corporate nonsense!