McMenamins to add rooms in Bend

Published 12:00 am Saturday, December 6, 2014

McMenamins Old St. Francis School plans to move three separate guest lodging houses from its property in downtown Bend to make room for dozens of new hotel rooms.

The houses will be trucked to Sunriver, where an undisclosed buyer intends to turn them into vacation rentals, said Jared Prince, property manager at Old St. Francis School. In their place, McMenamins plans two new buildings that will add a total of 43 rooms, Prince said. The additions would more than double the 19 rooms currently available, including those inside the former school building, he said.

The company has long had plans to expand the property.

“We’ve been tossing around things since the day we opened,” said Brian McMenamin, co-owner with his brother, Michael, of Portland-based McMenamins Inc. The hotel, brewpub and restaurant on Bond Street in Bend, one of 56 McMenamins properties in Oregon and Washington, opened for business 10 years ago.

Sale of the three buildings, situated just east of O’Kane’s Pub, at the corner of NW Lava Road and NW Louisiana Avenue, is pending final approval of McMenamins’ expansion plans by the city of Bend, Brian McMenamin said Friday.

The three buildings will be moved by flatbed trailer to Sunriver by March or April, according to McMenamin and Prince.

“It’s a fantastic project,” Prince said. “And, once again, being able to preserve those buildings makes it even better.”

The new buildings could be open for business by the end of 2015, McMenamin said.

The fourth building on the property, the Parish House, a guest house located between O’Kane’s and a parking lot to the west, will remain on the site, he said. The original St. Francis School opened in 1936; Prince said the four wood-frame buildings were added sometime between the 1940s and 1960s.

“We took the design elements from the bungalows and tried to incorporate them into the (new) buildings to make them look like they’ve been there for a while,” McMenamin said.

The plan calls for additional parking, he said. Prince said the new buildings will stand a bit taller than the existing two-story structures.

The company filed its preliminary site plans Friday with the city Community Development Department. The plans by Portland architects Ankrom Moisan show an East Lodge with 24 rooms and a West Lodge with 17 rooms, each two stories plus an attic guest room, a total of 19,368 square feet.

The next step in the city process is a meeting with city staff to review the application, followed by a period for input by the surrounding property owners, said Colin Stephens, Bend planning manager.

O’Kane’s Pub and the courtyard and fire pits around it will remain open for business during construction, McMenamin said. The pub is known for the stream of exclusively Grateful Dead music that issues from the sound system.

“It’s something we just kinda grew up with,” McMenamin said. “It’s the kind of music we like to hear.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com