DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Portland

DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Portland is a hotel in Portland, Oregon's Lloyd District, in the United States. The hotel opened as the Sheraton-Portland Hotel in 1959, and in 1980 became the Red Lion Inn/Lloyd Center.

The hotel has been credited with playing "a crucial role in the development of Portland's eastside". After an expansion in the early 1980s, for a time it was the largest hotel in all of Oregon.[1]

Description

The hotel is one of the five largest in Portland, with 477 guest rooms as of 2020. The property also has restaurants, a covered parking garage and a conference center.[2] The hotel has fifteen floors and multiple glass elevators.[3] The outdoor pool, among few at Portland hotels, can accommodate approximately 20 to 30 people.[4]

History

The hotel opened as the Sheraton-Portland Hotel on September 28, 1959,[5][6] owned by the Lloyd Corporation and operated by Sheraton Hotels.[7] It was the first new hotel in Portland since the opening of the New Heathman Hotel, in 1928.[8] It was renamed the Sheraton Motor Inn in 1963.[9]

In June 1980, the hotel was purchased from the Lloyd Corp. by the Thunderbird–Red Lion Inns chain,[8] and became the Red Lion Inn/Lloyd Center on August 1 of that year,[10] the latter part of the name referring to the Lloyd Center mall, located across Multnomah Street from the hotel. The nine-story hotel had 276 rooms at that time, but a major expansion – including the addition of a 15-story tower – was planned.[8] When the expanded hotel reopened in 1982, it had 520 rooms and was the largest hotel in all of Oregon.[1] In 1989, with 476 rooms, the Red Lion Inn/Lloyd Center was still the second-largest hotel in the state, after the 503-room Portland Marriott Hotel in Downtown Portland.[11] In September 1996, its owner, Red Lion Hotels, Inc., then based in Vancouver, Washington, entered into an agreement to be acquired by then-Phoenix-based Doubletree Corp.[12] The merger closed on November 8, 1996,[13] and the Lloyd Center hotel was renamed the Doubletree Hotel Portland.[14] In October 1998, Doubletree announced plans to expand the hotel with a new 300-room tower to be constructed on the northeast corner of the property, in order to make the hotel a 'headquarters hotel' for the nearby Oregon Convention Center.[15] The addition was never built. In late 2010 and 2011, all Doubletree hotels were rebranded as "DoubleTree by Hilton".[16]

A woman was found dead in one of the hotel's stairwells in late 2014. A Washington man was accused of murder and arrested.[17] The woman's family sued Hilton and the hotel's owners.[18][19]

In 2019, a man filed a $10-million lawsuit against the hotel, claiming that he was racially profiled during his stay in 2018.[20][21][22] The hotel issued an apology and fired two employees.[23][24][25] The hotel's operator, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, said that the company has "zero tolerance for racism".[26]

Reception

Lizzy Acker included the property in The Oregonian 2016 list of Portland's best outdoor hotel pools.[27] In 2017, the newspaper's Grant Butler included the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in a list of "38 landmark Portland hotels that offer a window into Rose City's history, growth". He wrote: "The recently renovated DoubleTree Hotel in the Lloyd District may seem like just another link in the chain of hotels catering to corporate travelers. But it played a crucial role in the development of Portland's eastside when it first opened in 1959 as the Sheraton-Portland. The nine-story hotel featured 300 rooms, and cost $6 million to complete. Because of its location directly across Northeast Multnomah from Lloyd Center, the hotel catered to shoppers drawn to the then-outdoor shopping mall, which was one of the first of its kind in the nation.[28]"

Fodor's has said, "This bustling, business hotel maintains a steady customer base in meetings and special events, so you will find all the usual business-friendly perks and luxuries.... The large rooms, many with balconies, are well maintained, and many of those on the upper floors have views of the city and—on clear days—the mountains."[29][30] Deanna deBara of Fodor's has rated the hotel four out of five stars.[31] One guide by Moon Publications said "The best thing about this Lloyd District hotel is its location (and the warm chocolate chip cookies at check-in).... The rooms are, for the most part, spacious, clean, and comfortable."[32]

External links

• DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Portland at Hilton.com
• DoubleTree by Hilton–Portland at Fodor's
• Doubletree by Hilton Portland at Travel Weekly