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An agenda bill at Monday’s Council Meeting announced that Renton taxpayers will have to pay even more money for having hosted a King County Shelter in our former Red Lion Hotel.
Renton’s former Red Lion Hotel and Convention Center, once a vital anchor of our Renton Village Shopping Center before it got destroyed during use as a pandemic-era shelter, continues to cost Renton taxpayers money. As of this week the hotel will cost Renton taxpayers another $600,000, and will cost Renton’s insurance carrier another $900,000, for a total of $1.5 million. The money settles a lawsuit that the hotel owners filed against Renton asserting that Renton’s 2020 zoning changes, which restricted the size of homeless shelters, lessened their opportunities and profits on the property.
While I have not been party to the legal negotiations and won’t comment to the validity of any of their specific claims, I will point out that the public record shows they purchased the hotel for about $8.8 million, and sold it to King County less than ten years later for $36.2 million. This represents more than 400 % return, or about 40% per year on their investment. They also reportedly rented the property to King County for $330,000 per month for several years, for an additional payoff of somewhere between 6-10 million dollars.
According the the King County Parcel Viewer, the owners did not appear to apply for many building permits during this time, other than a series of fire-safety related fixes costing about $200,000 that were ordered by the Fire Martial who found a series of code violations when it was operated as a shelter. So it does not appear that any major remodeling ever occured.
During the time the Red Lion was operated as a shelter, it used an enormous and disproportionate amount of city services, particularly by our first responders. These services were paid for by Renton taxpayers.
Renton Red Lion Hotel has been boarded up for years
For all these reasons, it’s frustrating that Renton taxpayers now have to pay another $600,000 to cover costs related to the former Red Lion shelter. This is money that could have gone to important programs like construction of new affordable housing, behavioral health services, or job training.
The sales history shows the Hotel Investors group buying the hotel in 2014 for 8.8 million and selling it to King County in 2024 for $36.2 million, a 400% return.
Permit history for former Renton Red Lion as reported in King County Parcel Viewer
In a previous blog post comment, I calculated that it cost about $38 million dollars to house 200 people for 18 months in this hotel, not including the millions of dollars spent on utilities, staffing, food and supplies. That’s $10,500 per person per month just for the building. I need to increase the $38 million by another $1.5 million, thanks to this latest settlement.
A photo in the Hotel lobby during better times, when my daughter worked at the front desk.
The hotel and convention center featured an inviting outdoor pool that made it popular with summer travelers
Randy, do you know the history of the alleged Renton zoning changes?
When were the changes made?
Who voted for and against?
Thank you
Yes, p michael, thanks for asking. The changes were made in 2020. The vote was five-to-two to put reasonable restrictions on how large an individual shelter can be, and how it needs to be staffed to avoid fire safety risks and other dangers. The ordinance was in keeping with a subsequent state law 35.21.683 which reads “Reasonable occupancy, spacing, and intensity of use requirements may be imposed by ordinance on permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, indoor emergency housing, and indoor emergency shelters to protect public health and safety.” We imposed the restrictions after it became apparent that lives were in danger due to continuing fire safety hazards in the 250-room hotel. For instance, non-ambulatory residents (who used wheelchairs) were being housed on upper floors, when the hotel had always been required to accommodate such residents only on the first floor.
Kim Khan Van and Ryan McIrvin voted against these restrictions, and Carmen Rivera wrote an op-ed saying she would have voted against them if she had been on Council.
The other five of us voted for the reasonable restrictions, and we also made the smaller but better-equipped “Extended Stay” hotel available to King County.
I discuss this more in this blog entry here.
epic failures constantly.. how do these bad decisions always continue to cost tax payers over and over.. just complete incompitence.
Millions of dollars for the homeless industrial complex becomes pennies for the homeless.
It was even worse. There’s were rapes, fires, and beatings in that Red Lion.
The grift that keeps on grifting
I have information about what happened at the Red Lion, volumes. How does one contact you privately Mr. Croman?
….Mr. Corman, sorry, very tired here.
(I’m writing it out to minimize robots sending me messages); My email is randycorman at gmail dot com. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!