Plans to convert the OYO Hotel into long-term housing for seniors and adults with disabilities have now been scrapped as the property has been acquired, Port of Olympia Acting Executive Director Rudy Rudolph reported to the Port Commission on Monday, July 7.
Satyam Tumwater LLC, based in California, now owns the OYO and Comfort Inn hotels and plans to renovate both buildings and continue to operate them as hotels.
Satyam was a creditor of previous owner Han Joe Ro LLC which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2022. It acquired the properties through a foreclosure auction on June 30.
Rudolph said there is already a tentative lease deal with Satyam Tumwater to extend the current ground lease to 2043 with an option to extend for another 30 years.
Pravin Pranav, a partner at Satyam Tumwater LLC, added that the reopening of Comfort Inn should happen within the next few months. The hotel had been leased to the State of Washington until approximately this April and is currently closed.
Pranav said there is no interest in converting the properties to long-term housing. “That was not the intention with which we acquired it,” Pranav told The JOLT, adding that he was not aware that the property had been considered for long-term housing.
Plans to convert the OYO Hotel into housing started more than two years ago when the Housing Authority of Thurston County began talks with Han Joe Ro to purchase the property.
The purchase was delayed as converting the property into housing would have been an incompatible use of the land. The landlord, the Port of Olympia, operates the property for airport-related purposes; the Federal Aviation Administration restricts the property to airport-related uses.
The Port would have needed to show that the release of the property would provide equal or greater benefit to keeping the land, according to the process laid out by the FAA to the Port in 2021.
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TonyW33
The Port of Olympia was never going to let this senior housing idea occur. They made that clear early on and have drug their feet the last year. They want the hotels to continue and eventually for there to be jet traffic at the airport here. That is the drive behind creating a warehouse district in Tumwater and tossing Little League from the fields that they have used for 20 years or more. One wonders when all these discussions happen while nothing is said in meetings.
Monday, July 17, 2023 Report this