Wanted: Responsible Owners for the Winthrop Hotel

Tomorrow evening, the members of the Tacoma City Council may put the final touches to a transfer of ownership for Tacoma's long-debated Winthrop Hotel. While there are many aspects to the public debate that has surrounded this pending sale, one issue is of particular concern to downtown property owners--that the sheer size of the 190-unit complex makes it critical that it be well-managed.

It's been well documented that the area around the Winthrop requires an inordinate amount of attention from BIA security patrols and the Tacoma Police Department. A key principle in addressing public disorder is the need for organizations and programs to mitigate their community impacts in cooperation with other stakeholders. This principle has gained greater recognition from the larger community through deliberations of such groups as the Blue Ribbon Task Force and the Service Tax Task Force, among others. The Tacoma community is becoming increasingly demanding that the impacts of service providers of any type be borne by those providers; this has long been the standard imposed by the community on for-profit operations.

Coast Real Estate Services, the current managers of the Winthrop, have been egregious in their failure to mitigate the community impacts engendered by their complex. They have been unwilling even to allow their representatives to take part in community dialog.

Many community members, including members of the Tacoma City Council, have taken solace from their sense that A.F. Evans Development, the Oakland-based non-profit in line to purchase the complex, will be a better manager; yet the Lake Washington Apartments in Rainier Beach, co-owned the past 10 years by Evans, are reportedly plagued by drug dealing, shootings, beatings, syringes on lawns, stolen mail, feces and urine in the hallways, and discarded condoms in the laundry rooms.

The third party to consider as possible managers for the Winthrop is the group being organized by Tim Quigg, a principal in Quigg Brothers, Inc. Quigg is currently partnering on the restoration of the Morck Hotel in Aberdeen with Seattle developer Chester Trabucco, who also rehabilitated the Hotel Elliott in Astoria, OR. Will Quigg and his partners offer better management for the Winthrop than either of the current parties? This is a critical question that deserves investigation by City of Tacoma leaders before they close out other options.