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.