‘It’s one of a kind’ – The Register

The doors are swinging wide this week on downtown Eugene's first new hotel in 30 years.

The shiny black Mercedes van is waiting to deliver guests to the front door, where they'll be met and ushered to their rooms. No need to stand in line to check in; all the needed information already has been loaded onto the guests' room cards.

The in-room refrigerators have been stocked in advance with each guest's preferred food and drink, and the Keurig coffee makers are waiting to brew. The spa tubs and bedroom fireplaces are waiting to be turned on. And the baskets are ready for upper-floor guests to lower from their balconies to the courtyard below, where employees from LaVelle Vineyards' tasting room will fill them with wine and cheese.

The Inn at the 5th is the culmination of a quarter-century dream for developer Brian Obie; a dream that he was determined to make a reality despite a severe recession and the collapse of financial markets.

"I have believed all my life that if you can create a vision and believe in that vision, it can happen," he said. "If I could teach anything to people a lot younger than me, that is what I would teach them. We willed this to happen."

The idea of creating a high-end boutique hotel in Eugene first took root in Obie's mind 25 years ago when he was staying at the Inn at the Market at Seattle's Pike Place Market. "I recognized the synergy between a small, but great, hotel and a market," Obie said. He had the market — Fifth Street Public Market — but not the hotel.

It wasn't until Nike moved from the market to Oakway Center in 2008, opening up that space, that the pieces fell into place and Obie got serious about turning his dream into a reality. Even the Great Recession didn't stop him.

When the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent financial markets into a tailspin, Obie lopped off the 15 condominiums originally included in his plans, cut his budget and put together a package of financing that included loans from local credit unions, two small government loans and funds from private investors.

When he started planning the Inn, Obie knew that he wanted a hotel that would offer luxury, but also feel comfortable, not stuffy. And, he said, "We wanted people to have a sense of discovery, to feel that it's a different experience. "

The room layouts are deliberately different from most hotels. Beds are angled instead of being perpendicular to the wall in most rooms and have niches above for art or memorabilia. Sixty-two rooms have fireplaces; all have a balcony, window seat or spa.

Obie looked at what other hotels were doing, particularly the Inn at the Market, a standout hotel with consistently high occupancy rates, Obie said. "I toured that hotel from the bowels to the attic three times, I've been in every corner of it. I wanted to understand what the guests were looking for. "

He also did his own informal surveys and relentlessly questioned both men and women about what they wanted in a hotel.

When he found that both genders hated answering the door for room service, the "butler closet" was born. Servers from Marché, which provides room service for the hotel, open a small door on the hallway side of the cubby with a key, place the food and drink inside, then push a button to alert the room's occupants that their meal has arrived. Guests open an inside door to retrieve the tray. (The system also eliminates dirty dishes left in the hotel halls.

Women put a high priority on double sinks in the bathroom; men wanted glass shower enclosures. So bathrooms have double sinks and glass showers. (Frosted, because women preferred that.

Advances in technology were incorporated into the makeup of the hotel. For example, a guest's preference for room temperature is recorded; repeat visitors will find the room heated or cooled to their preferred temperatures when they check in; and the water heating system provides instant hot water on demand.

"When you're at the level we will be at, people, when they turn the water on, expect hot water and lots of it," Obie said.

Room rates start at $200 and go up to $500 for the largest suite, which is close to 1,000 square feet and includes a spa with a jetted tub that can seat five people and a shower that can hold 10.

Obie also wanted to incorporate green practices into the hotel when possible. The Mitsubishi modular heat pump system, for example, cuts energy use by 30 percent.

And he wanted it to have a sense of place. "One of the things that came up a lot is, when you check in to most hotels, it's 'the same old, same old,' " Obie said.

Thus, Inn at the 5th rooms have original artwork. The orange-and-brown glass light fixtures in the public areas were designed by Eugene artist Susie Zeitner. A maple tree that had to come down because of its age and health (it had been dropping a branch through Nike's roof was recycled into a large coffee table for the Inn lobby and smaller end tables for the rooms by Urban Lumber Co. of Springfield. Mantels in the 62 rooms with fireplaces were made of wood recycled from Nike's counters, ticking both Obie's sense of place and green practice boxes.

Taking it a step further, Obie invited a number of local groups, such as the Oregon Track Club and the Oregon Bach Festival, to create themed rooms.

"We couldn't pass that up," said George Evano, the Bach Festival's director of communications. "There are whole groups of Bach (musical suites. Our fans would have the opportunity to stay in a Bach suite as well as listening to a Bach suite," he said.

Obie also plans to have musicians playing in the garden plaza during warm weather, particularly when musical events are held in town.

And the hotel will be pet-friendly, because Obie noticed the trend of more people traveling with small dogs. ("If a cheetah checks in, we'll have to figure that out," he said.

Even before the Inn's soft opening this week — its grand opening will come in about a month — its impact was being felt. Obie fulfilled his vow to hire local whenever possible for the project. Forty-three of the 45 companies who worked on the project were from Eugene, Springfield, and the surrounding area — from general contractor John Hyland Construction of Springfield, on down to Distinctive Wood Kitchen and Bath, which employs three people in Eugene, including owner Greg Buessow,

Owners and managers of the companies that worked on the hotel said Obie's contracts were important not just because he provided jobs at a time when construction projects are in short supply, but because he gave them a chance to showcase their work. "It's a marquee project," Hyland vice president Shaun Hyland said. "It's one of a kind."

The hotel began generating early buzz in tourism and convention circles, as well as specific interest groups — one running blog notes that it will be open in time for this summer's U.S. Olympic Track Field Trials.

Kari Westlund, CEO of Travel Lane County, said that not only is the Inn at the 5th filling a new niche in the local market, it is adding to the overall stock of hotel rooms in downtown Eugene, which allows the area to bid for larger conventions.

Michael Schwartz, president of M Jacobs furniture stores, is one of the investors in the project. Part of the reason he invested, he said, is that it will be good for his downtown business. But he also invested because he believes in Brian Obie and his vision, Schwartz said.

"I think this is very, very special. … It's going to become a destination," Schwartz said. "I hope that Lane County appreciates what Brian has done." Obie has created jobs, increased interest in downtown Eugene, and put himself on the line to do it, he said.

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