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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 26, 2018)
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS TRUMP TRAVEL BAN PAGE 4A DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2018 145TH YEAR, NO. 256 ONE DOLLAR Astoria nixes new waterfront hotel Developer can appeal or start over By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian Astoria has shot down a hotel project planned for the waterfront. Amid concerns about the size and appearance of the building, the Design Review Committee and the Historic Land- marks Commission voted Monday night to tentatively deny an application for the pro- posed Astoria Fairfield Inn and Suites. The four-story, 66-room hotel would have been built across from the Astoria Riverwalk at the base of Second Street off Marine Drive and near a historic boiler from the former White Star Cannery. Developers planned to incorporate The Ship Inn, a former restaurant and lounge, using the building as a lobby and dining area for the hotel. The public hearings have closed. Hol- lander Hospitality, the developer behind the hotel project, and the architecture firm that designed the Fairfield will not get a second chance to provide new information or change their proposal. Following meet- ings in July where city staff will present findings of fact to reflect the boards’ deni- als, they will be able to appeal the boards’ decisions or submit a new proposal and go through the whole process again. City staff reports provided to both boards were neutral and did not recom- mend either approval or denial. However, the reports did outline questions, concerns and issues staff said needed to be addressed. See HOTEL, Page 7A Astoria has rejected the design of a new hotel proposed for the waterfront. Interstate tolls may be coming to Portland Time to slide All lanes of I-5 could be tolled By PARIS ACHEN Capital Bureau Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Eleanor Nye prepares to descend the new slide at McClure Park. The attraction was officially opened to the public at a ceremony Monday evening. People attending the event make their way down the new attraction. The Friends of McClure Park organization has been work- ing since 2013 to improve con- ditions at the park. PORTLAND — A state policy advi- sory committee plans to recommend tolling all lanes of Interstate 5 and the Abernathy Bridge on Interstate 205 in the Portland metro area as a strategy to reduce traffic con- gestion and raise revenue to build a third lane on the bridge. Tolls on I-5 would extend from North Going/Alberta Street to Multnomah Boule- vard and be variable depending on levels of congestion. “What congestion pricing does … is it actually reduces the number of people on the road during peak period travel, gets the through traffic that we’re looking for, that we thought we needed with increased road space, but we actually get it with the pric- ing,” said Chris Hagerbaumer of the Oregon Environmental Council, who serves on the committee. “ … This is the cheapest way to get new ‘capacity.’” The tolls would be launched as a pilot program to prove to the public the efficacy of congestion-priced tolls in reducing traf- fic congestion. The second part of the rec- ommendation calls for analyzing the results of the tolls and possibly developing a subse- quent, comprehensive plan for tolling other highways in the Portland area. Several people on the committee asked that increased transit services be a condition of imposing any tolls to help mitigate the impact the tolls could take on low-income commuters. “It’s hard to price people for something when we cannot provide them with other options,” said Craig Dirksen of the Metro Council, who serves on the committee. “We need to include transit access from the very beginning.” The 25 members of the committee failed to reach consensus on every aspect of the plan they’ll recommend. Each has an oppor- tunity to write an explanation for their sup- port or opposition in the final draft of the recommendation. Astoria Mayor Arline LaMear, center, cuts the ribbon during the ceremony. See TOLLS, Page 7A New river cruiser headed for the Columbia River American Song starts in March By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian A new cruise ship is com- ing to the Columbia River in March. American Cruise Lines will debut the American Song, a modernized version of the company’s inland pad- dle wheelers, in October on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Mem- phis. The ship will run along the Mississippi through New Year’s Day before heading to the West Coast. Cruises on the Columbia start in March. The five-deck American Song accommodates 190 pas- sengers. A retractable, rotat- ing gangway comes out of the ship’s bow. Instead of paddles, the ship is powered by twin rotating thrusters. Alexa Paolella, a spokes- woman for American Cruise Lines, said the older pad- dle wheelers — the American Pride and Queen of the West — will continue operating on the Columbia and Snake riv- ers, along with the Amer- ican Song. The cruise line mostly runs one-week trips between Astoria and Lewiston, Idaho, with a focus on the his- tory of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The Columbia is also home to the paddle wheeler American Empress from the American Queen Steamboat Co. “The Mississippi is hugely historic, but the Columbia and Snake (market) is growing,” Paolella said. The company will also add a ship in Puget Sound, bringing its West Coast fleet to five. The ships will include the classic paddle wheelers, the new river cruise ships and small coastal cruise ships. Astoria has been a grow- ing destination for cruise ships, both on the Columbia and with larger cruise lines transition- American Cruise Lines The American Song, a new river cruise ship, will debut on the Mississippi River this fall before relocating to the Columbia River early next year. ing ships to and from summer Alaska cruises. Bruce Conner, cruise ship marketer for the Port of Asto- ria, said there are 43,000 pas- sengers expected this year on the large, oceangoing ships, up from 38,000 last year. Those figures do not include Amer- ican Cruise Lines, which Paolella said keeps its passen- ger count below 200 per ship.
