Early years
Red Lion Hotels' roots began in 1959 in the Portland metropolitan area by two local business partners, Tod McClaskey and Ed Pietz. The two had met at McClaskey's first business, the Frontier Room, in Vancouver,[3] Washington and went on to purchase the 89-room Thunderbird Motor Inn in Portland, Oregon, located along the Willamette River, at the east end of Portland's Broadway Bridge, across the street from the Memorial Coliseum. It was the first property in what was initially called Thunderbird-Red Lion Inns.
McClaskey's business background and Pietz's construction background allowed the hotel company to grow rather quickly[3] and the two continued constructing and acquiring motels in the Western United States under the Thunderbird name, until they ran into a situation in Medford, Oregon where a Thunderbird already existed, at which point they launched the Red Lion brand. At that point, they branded their motels under the Thunderbird name, and their full-service hotels under the Red Lion name.[4] By the time the pair sold the company in 1984, the chain had grown to over 50 properties.
The original Thunderbird Motor Inn motel remained operating under the Thunderbird/Red Lion brand throughout its entire history, ultimately growing to 212 rooms, despite the Red Lion company and brand being sold numerous times through the 1980s and 1990s. The original motel would eventually land in the hands of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Aegean Development Company, which purchased it on November 1, 1992 for $5 million.[5] Allen had purchased the Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA several years prior and was planning a new arena next to the existing Memorial Coliseum. The new arena, known today as the Moda Center, opened in 1995 and would become part of the larger Rose Quarter sports and entertainment district. The motor inn's proximity to the new district greatly increased its redevelopment potential. Allen's company continued to own and operate the motel, then known as the Red Lion Inn Coliseum, until it was permanently closed on October 31, 2001. Aegean, cited the extraordinary maintenance costs of operating a 40-year hotel, weighed against potential revenues that would be generated by a redevelopment of the site, as its reason for closing the inn.[6] The motel was demolished in 2002, clearing land for redevelopment, however, at the time of its demolition, it was unknown what the site would become,[7] and as of December 2020, the site is still owned by Aegean and remains vacant.[8]
