There’s room at the inn (51 of them, actually)

Published 3:00 pm Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Best Western joins the roster of lodging options for visitors

to Bainbridge Island.

The smell of fresh paint wafts through a maze of gray-carpeted halls as Lukie Dervais winds her way around the new three-story hotel on High School Road.

“We’re excited,” the island resident said after three days on the job as one of the desk clerks at Best Western Bainbridge Island Suites, which opened Friday. “We’re close to downtown so it’s very convenient, and it’s near the highway. We’ve had people from Holland call for a reservation already. They’re coming for a wedding party.

“We also had some people stay here who were from Montana. It’s nice to see different people – people from all over.”

On Monday, about a half dozen rooms in the 51-unit hotel were booked.

The hotel offers a variety of room types, from deluxe accommodations with kitchenettes to single-person suites. Prices range between $89 and $169, with $10 a night discounts for island residents.

Other amenities include a small fitness center, high-speed Internet connections, free passes to the nearby public pool, a guest laundry and a closed, underground parking area monitored by security cameras.

And no room would be complete without a coffee maker, which Dervais proudly points out brews no ordinary cup of joe.

“We have Pegasus Coffee, right here from the island,” she says, taking hold of a little brown bag of ground beans in a unit overlooking the 76 gas station next door. “This makes it fresh for customers in each room.”

Best Western operates more than 4,000 hotels in 80 countries. The island’s Best Western is owned by Base Capital, LLC, a private real estate development and investment firm based in Bellevue. The company has at least one principal on Bainbridge Island.

Base Capital also built the nearly identical looking condominium taking shape next door.

“The hotel is convenient for the (Clearwater) casino, it’s not too far from downtown Winslow, the aquatic center and a grocery store and restaurant are just across the street,” said Kim Sorenson, Base Capital’s project manager for the mixed-use development. “We anticipate business people staying there, leisure travelers and families visiting over the holidays.”

The hotel brings the island’s overnight lodging capacity to 181 rooms, according to Linda Reed, head of the Bainbridge Island Lodging Association.

Island Country Inn, on Hildebrand Lane, now drops to the second-largest lodging establishment on Bainbridge with 45 units.

Reed believes the new hotel will add substantially to the island’s tourism industry.

“We expect the Best Western to have a very positive impact on Bainbridge Island’s lodging and visitor industry,” she said. “More guests will stay overnight on the island and in nearby communities and more residents will decide to hold events on the island because increased lodging will be available.”

Additional overnight visitors will provide a financial boost for local restaurants, retailers, and recreation-related business while cultural venues should see an increase in attendance, said Reed.

But not everyone shares Reed’s enthusiasm for the development.

Some residents say the development is out of scale with the surrounding area and adds an unappealing corporate presence to the island.

Neighborhood groups challenged the hotel and condo’s construction in Superior Court, citing traffic concerns. But the court ruled in favor of Base Capital, finding that the city properly assessed the impact of vehicle trips that will be generated by the two buildings.

Neighbors in the Virginia Villa apartments next door also raised a ruckus throughout the process, expressing concerns that the development would destroy a nearby wooded area.

Despite some local opposition, the hotel and its next-door condo are sailing ahead.

Slated to open its first phase at the end of April, the 60-unit Island Crossing condo project already has sold 35 homes.

Island Crossing includes 1,500 square feet of retail frontage on High School Road.

Chuck’s Barbershop, a Winslow Way mainstay for years, has signed on to move into the development by the start of summer.

Another commercial space has yet to find a tenant, but Sorenson said the storefront could become a locally owned coffee shop.