12 hours ago
Pierce County hotel slated to go from eyesore to ‘vibrant, attainable housing'
An abandoned former hotel in Fife appears to be the latest project for a group of regional investors that has turned several area distressed lodging properties into new, lower-cost apartments.
The former Rodeway Inn & Suites, 3100 Pacific Highway E., was acquired by Fife 119 LLC, affiliated with Sage Investment Group of Kirkland in late May.
The property was purchased as part of a Pierce County Superior Court receivership case involving the previous owner, an LLC that listed Portland developer Sean Keys of Fortify Holdings (parent company to the Fife hotel LLC) as its governor in its corporate filings with the Washington Secretary of State's Office.
Fortify is also in the business of lodging-to-apartments conversion.
Sage co-founder Emily Hubbard spoke to The News Tribune about the project Wednesday.
'This site has been on our radar for a couple years,' Hubbard said. 'It got purchased by one of our competitors in 2022. They bought it right around the time that we we were working on our other projects there. But It never seemed to get out of permitting ... just never progressed.'
According to the original complaint filed in October 2024 by Freedom REIT of Maryland, the hotel LLC agreed to borrow up to $10.5 million from the lender in May 2022 to finance the purchase and conversion of the site 'into basic efficiency apartments.'
The LLC later defaulted on the loan terms, according to the complaint, among other issues.
Sage's purchase price for the Fife hotel was $4.25 million. According to court filings, attorneys for the receiver wrote that the site had received multiple offers and that the receiver 'believes that the purchase price and other terms of the (purchase and sale agreement) are the best terms ... for a sale of the property under the current market conditions, and based on the destroyed condition of the property.'
The site experienced a fire in December 2023, and a semi-truck crashed into the vacant building a year later.
'So much workforce housing is needed in that area, and so we just felt comfortable buying another project there,' Hubbard said.
Sage plans to turn the property into '121 high-quality studio apartments,' according to a recent release, following demolition and filling of the pool to satisfy remediation terms from the City of Fife in its Notice of Violation of the property issued last year.
A recent Facebook post on the Sage Investment Group page, showing a short video of the site, stated it was 'thrilled to announce our latest acquisition: Fife 119!'
'At Sage, we're passionate about transforming underutilized and sometimes even burnt-down hotels into vibrant, attainable housing,' the post read.
'We can't wait to roll up our sleeves and begin the work of bringing this building back to life, creating quality homes for future residents.'
Sage is perhaps best known for converting older hotel properties along South Hosmer Street, where several blocks had become a hotbed of criminal activity.
In August 2024, Sage announced the first units for lease in its conversion of Hotel Thea to Thea Apartments, 7414 S. Hosmer St.
The site, which includes amenities such as a pool, held its grand opening in May. The latest property is the group's third acquired in Fife. Affiliated LLCs with Sage purchased 3501 Pacific Highway E. and 3518 Pacific Highway E. in 2022. Those sites are now Pinnacle Apartments and Pinnacle Point Apartments, respectively.
Sage noted in its release that the new addition will bring 'the company's total footprint in Fife to 297 units.'
As for the latest acquisition, 'The team plans to include a common community area in the lobby, including a shared kitchen, arcade games, seating area, as well as an outdoor community space.'
'We're confident in our ability to get it going,' Hubbard told The News Tribune. 'We've worked with the City of Fife before, and we have a very good understanding of what they expect with conversions.'
She added that if all goes well, leasing could perhaps begin mid- to late-summer of next year, but admitted that would be an 'aggressive' timeline.
Also they get to start from scratch, unlike other conversions working with existing architecture. For example, Hubbard envisioned a dog park area at the former pool site.
'It's a bigger lift construction-wise, but we can be more creative with this,' she noted of the project, with a time-lapse footage planned to document the process.
'There's a piece of graffiti by somebody who used to smoke meth in the building and wants everybody to know about it,' she added, describing the current setting. 'And I can't wait to see that transform into something else.'
Along with its ambitious site conversions area-wide, at least one Sage project in Pierce County faced recent oversight fallout.
In early April, The News Tribune reported that a handful of residents had been living in Sage's Melody Apartments in Lakewood despite city staff declaring the units illegal to occupy and necessary repairs still to be made.
The building has remained vacant since the tenants moved out in early- to mid-April.
City of Lakewood media representative Brynn Grimley told The News Tribune via email on Tuesday, 'We've completed two inspections. There are still a few things that need to be corrected in order for it to pass its rental inspection.'
Grimley added, 'The next inspection is scheduled for Wednesday. The hope is this will be the final inspection, allowing it to pass and be ready for renters.'
Hubbard told The News Tribune on Wednesday, 'We've been cooperating with the City of Lakewood and working through all that, and we are excited to make sure that everything's up to standards before they all get released to new tenants.
'We've definitely learned some lessons there, and it's never our intention to have any of our tenants in unsafe situations,' she added.
Previous reporting by The News Tribune contributed to this report.
