May 8, 2003 - Once a lime-green eyesore studded with weeds on its upper ledges and home to a thousand pigeons, the downtown Tacoma Waddell Building blossomed Wednesday into its next role. 

Some 200 officials, builders and dignitaries gathered at the site for an afternoon groundbreaking of the city's newest hotel, the Courtyard by Marriott, soon to rise between Pacific Avenue and Commerce Street leading from the Waddell south of South 15th Street. 

"Tacoma is in the midst of a renaissance which I think is as exciting as any in Washington or the West Coast," said Mike Hollander, developer of the $12 million project and owner of Bellingham's Hollander Investments. 

Hollander's company in 2002 agreed to buy the site from the city, which had assembled the property as part of a downtown redevelopment plan. 

On Commerce Street, the hotel will be located alongside the light rail line and across from the new convention center. Views from Pacific Avenue will include the Tacoma Art Museum, Union Station, the Thea Foss Waterway and Mount Rainier. 

Scheduled to open in the summer of 2004, the six-story hotel will feature 153 guest rooms and offer a buffet breakfast. Another six rooms, more in the line of upscale suites, will fill the adjacent and connected top floor of the Waddell Building. 

Hollander said he is negotiating with owners of a brew pub to occupy the ground floor of the building. He also hopes to lease space so that a coffee bar might occupy an area -- with its front now redesigned and painted to resemble an Irish pub -- along Commerce Street. 

Further leasable retail space along Pacific Avenue may go to a day spa and a "high end" restaurant, Hollander said. 

With steamrollers rolling, large scoops scooping and workers loudly sawing wood at the site of the convention center, it was at times difficult to hear speakers at Wednesday's ceremony. 

Still, Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma and City Councilman Kevin Phelps welcomed Hollander to Tacoma. 

Expanding the city's longtime motto, Phelps said, "We have arrived at our destiny and taken it one step further." 

Baarsma offered a question he often uses at the increasing number of occasions such as this: "Are we on a roll, or what?" 

Speaking of the Waddell Building, he said, "This really is a butterfly coming out of a cocoon." 

Historic preservation specialist Michael Sullivan offered a brief history of the 113-year-old building, tracing its resume from a hotel and bank to a brandy-and-cigar saloon led by a brothel keeper, then from a soft-drink parlor to a derelict home for generations of the city's bird population. 

Sullivan later said the Waddell Building, with its stained glass and Wilkeson sandstone, "gives the area a sense of authenticity, of memory, of the importance of surviving. It's like talking to an elder." 

"I think a building like this brings credibility to a city." 

Chuck Valley, Hollander Investments' hotel division vice president, said the hotel would employ perhaps 100, and that he will begin taking applications next spring. 

Ruthie Reinert, head of the Tacoma Regional Convention & Visitor Center, said the hotel is essential to Tacoma's mission to become a destination for conventions and other assemblies. 

"We will rely on both the Sheraton and this hotel to attract groups to the city," she said. 

She also said the Hollander group had a good name among those who follow hotels. "They have an excellent reputation," she said. 

Hollander operates a Best Western and a Holiday Inn in Puyallup, and a Best Western in Bellingham. 

When his chief of operations suggested two years ago that Mike Hollander consider developing a property in Tacoma, Hollander said he was wary. 

"He said we need to look at going downtown," Hollander said. "I used to think of it as the armpit of America." 

Since deciding to spend $12 million at the center of Tacoma's rebirth, he said, "It is refreshing to work with a city that wants to make things happen." 

At the close of Wednesday's event, dignitaries used gold-painted shovels to turn the earth -- taken from across the street -- piled along Commerce Street. 

Applause also competed with the nearby clamor of power tools and machines. 

Courtyard Marriott 

Owner: Hollander Investments Inc. of Bellingham 

Location: between Pacific Avenue and Commerce Street at South 15th Street 

Rooms: up to 160, including six upscale suites in historic Waddell Building 

Other facilities: discussing retail presence of brew pub, coffee bar, restaurant, spa 

Cost of development: $12 million 

Cost of a room: undecided -- perhaps $100 

Opening: Mid-2004 

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(c) 2003, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. MAR,