Portland, Ore.-based real estate developer Curtis Rystadt plans to turn the long-shuttered, five-story Otis Hotel building in downtown Spokane into a 112 guest-room boutique hotel that will be affiliated with the Hotel Indigo brand.

Rystadt says he’s about half finished with the interior demolition work in the 106-year-old structure, located at 110 S. Madison.

“If all goes as planned, we’d like to open for business in 10 months,” he says. 

Patty Kells, of the city of Spokane’s Planning and Development Department, says Rystadt’s plans for the hotel currently are under review.

Rystadt says he’s yet to establish the final cost of the project, which will include retail space on the street level. Records from a pre-development conference with the city earlier this year listed an estimated construction cost of $6 million.

Case Design Group, of Portland, is the project architect. Rystadt says a general contractor hasn’t been selected yet. 

Rystadt purchased the building, which has been vacant for more than seven years, on June 27 for $1.4 million through 110 S. Madison Realty LLC, which he formed as the real estate holding company to buy the structure from former owner Coastal Community Bank, of Everett, Wash.

“When I contacted the bank, they were in the process of foreclosing. I just continued to stay in contact with them and ended up buying the property from the bank,” Rystadt says.

He says the new hotel will be named Hotel Indigo, and he will be a franchisee of that company.

The Hotel Indigo brand is a subsidiary of InterContinental Hotels Group, a multinational British hotelier.

“Indigo is a great hotel concept that I think fits in line with my goals … to keep the historic and local flavor of the hotel,” Rystadt says. “Unlike a typical hotel that is branded the same across the country, with Indigo, each hotel is different in that they reflect the locality and the area.”

 Pacific Inns LLC, a hospitality and consulting services company that’s also based in Portland, will serve as the hotel’s manager. Rodger Forni owns and operates Pacific Inns, which he founded in 1992. 

When first built, the structure housed the Willard Hotel. The name later changed to the Atlantic Hotel, Milner Hotel, Earle Hotel, and then the Otis. In its later years, before shutting down, the Otis Hotel building housed apartment units for low-income residents. 

Spokane firefighters extinguished small blazes in the building in 1997 and 2007. Despite that and the building’s age, Rystadt says the Otis Hotel is structurally sound. Old-growth timber was used to construct the building.

“The bones of this building are in fantastic shape,” Rystadt says.

In the hotel basement, Rystadt found an antique safe and a classic steam pump built in 1913. He hopes to incorporate the two in the hotel’s final interior design.

“In working with the design team, we’re trying to come up with a way to raise the pump into the main lobby and implement it as part of the décor in the hotel,” he says.

Rystadt says his original plan was to remodel the building into rental units. 

 “The more and more I went through the building, the more I began to think that it works better as a hotel,” he says. “And I’m already doing three different apartment complexes in the Portland area right now, so this seemed like a good opportunity to diversify my portfolio.”

Rystadt, 47, says the Otis Hotel is the first property he’s owned in the Spokane market. In addition to his current projects in Portland, Rystadt says he also has three, small residential holdings in the Chicago area.

 “I like the Spokane area, and I like the idea of owning property where all four seasons are represented,” Rystadt says. “I look at properties throughout the United States on a regular basis. What I like about Spokane is that it’s a solid market with slow growth. I think it’s a great city.”

An avid golfer, he says he’s played golf in Spokane for several years.

“I had the pleasure playing with (Spokane golf pro) Gary Lindeblad in the Oregon Open years ago,” Rystadt says. “I was an aspiring young golfer, and he was just a class act.”

Rystadt says he looks forward to being able to offer discounted room rates to professional and amateur golf players competing here during the summer months.

“That’s my attempt to say thank you and to try to give back to the great game of golf,” Rystadt says.

InterContinental Hotel Group opened its first Hotel Indigo in Atlanta in 2004 and opened two more in Chicago the following year.

About 70 hotels operate under the Hotel Indigo brand, and an additional 60 are expected to open under that name in the next 18 to 24 months. 

Currently, the closest Hotel Indigo to Spokane is in the Napa Valley region of northern California.

The company’s website says each Hotel Indigo property is designed to reflect the “culture, character, and history of the surrounding neighborhood.”