Once home to Elvis for just one night, a Kalama motel is now slated to be demolished after falling into disrepair more recently.
The OYO Hotel, formerly known as the Columbia Inn Motel, is located at 602 N.W. Frontage Road, right beside Interstate 5 as it passes through Kalama.
In the years since the rock ‘n’ roll legend’s visit on the way to Seattle’s 1962 World’s Fair, the 40-some-room motel changed hands and became the site of frequent police and emergency calls, said Dan Polacek, spokesman for the Port of Kalama.
The port purchased the 0.9-acre property through a trustee’s sale at the Cowlitz County Courthouse for about $1.4 million in July. The port closed the hotel 20 days later.
“With just a week’s notice of the trustee’s sale, the port reacted quickly to buy this property,” Port of Kalama Commissioner Troy Stariha said in a written statement. “While we did not have a plan or vision when we bought this property, the port has the opportunity and ability to work with the city to improve this part of downtown for the community.”
The port hopes to develop the site to build out Kalama’s downtown business district and complement existing uses, Polacek said.
Ted Sprague, president of the Cowlitz Economic Development Council, was excited to see a change at the site.
“I think by purchasing this dilapidated hotel in the middle of downtown Kalama, they’re showing commitment to the community and, frankly, getting rid of an eyesore,” he said.
Ports have taken on an increasingly significant role in local economic development amid a regional growth boom. For example, the Port of Woodland is both working to open a deep-water port and operating an upscale RV park.
Cowlitz County’s gross domestic product, or GDP (the market value of all the goods and services produced by labor and property in an area), grew by more than 40 percent between 2017 and 2022, significantly outpacing its 5 percent population growth.
Although those numbers mirror Washington’s, Cowlitz County’s population growth was twice as fast as the U.S. rate, and the GDP growth was nearly a third larger.
“The ports in Washington state have a lot of tools at their disposal, and the Port of Kalama, more than probably almost any other port in the state of Washington, uses all of those tools,” Sprague said. “They have heavy industrial park, they have light industrial park, they have restaurants, they have retail, they have recreation, and they’re really tied into the community.”
Sprague said the recent purchase fits naturally within that.
The port plans to demolish the hotel this fall and will begin evaluating the site’s infrastructure and business opportunities shortly. It will then put out a request for proposals to developers to decide the fate of the once-proud stopover.
For now, though, the fenced-off site is slated to become backup parking for existing businesses and downtown events.
