April 23–A plan to build a 47-room hotel at Hillsboro’s Cornelius Pass Roadhouse and convert its historic Imbrie House to an 11-room bed and breakfast jumped another hurdle Wednesday night.
The Hillsboro Planning Commission approved the alterations to the historic site, which is operated by the brewpub chain McMenamins.
The Cornelius Pass Roadhouse includes the Imbrie House, the Imbrie Hall bar and restaurant, a distillery, a brewery and a barn for private events. The property dates to the 1840s, when Kentucky native Edward Henry Lenox staked claim to the land after traveling with the first major emigrant party over the Oregon Trail. Robert Imbrie acquired the property in the 1850s and built the three-story Imbrie House in the 1860s.
McMenamins wants to build a 47-room hotel on some green space west of the Imbrie Hall restaurant, which would require removal of lawn and trees, planning documents show.
“We wanted to place [the new hotel] in a location that did not compete visually with the historic building [the Imbrie House],” said Spencer Howard, of the Tacoma, Washington firm Artifacts Consulting, to the planning commission. Howard added that none of the trees slated for removal existed before 1970.
Planning commissioners conditioned tree removal upon the issuance of a building or grading permit for the project.
McMenamins would also build a new parking lot on the property’s southeast corner, according to the proposal.
The property is at the corner of Cornelius Pass Road and Imbrie Drive, just south of an interchange with U.S. 26. A Fred Meyer shopping plaza and Ron Tonkin Field are nearby.
McMenamins will now have to file a separate application for design and construction of the hotel, which is subject to the final approval of Hillsboro Planning Director Colin Cooper.
— Luke Hammill
503-294-4029
@HlsboroReporter
