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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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M&M Olympus Hotel Limited Partnership of Bellevue agreed Monday to sell its ownership of the 49-unit affordable housing project in downtown Tacoma to the Korean Women's Association.
KWA Executive Director Lua Pritchard announced the signing of the purchase-and-sale agreement during Monday afternoon's meeting of the Tacoma City Council's Neighborhoods and Housing Committee.
The association, a multi-ethnic social services organization, had negotiated for more than a year to buy the 1909, seven-story vintage hotel.
Pritchard did not disclose the sales price but said her association would have 90 days to complete detailed structural, electrical and mechanical inspections of the building and tenant histories before closing on the sale.
"We’re praying we won’t find things we can’t deal with," she said.
She also noted that rather than purchase the building outright, the association would purchase the general partnership that owns it, which preserves valuable tax credits. Those credits, originally thought to last 35 years as long as the project remains a home for low-income tenants, only lasts through 2015, Pritchard said.
She also outlined the association's renovation and rental plans for the former-hotel-turned-low-income-housing project at 817 Pacific Avenue. The exterior will get an estimated $345,000 makeover, the interior rooms would get $325,000 worth of work and, depending on the organizations ability to get funding, a below-ground commercial floor under Paddy Coyne's Irish Pub could get a $200,000 upgrade and a tenant.
In 2006, the Olympus and the nearby Winthrop Hotel, another low-income residential building, became the target of neighbors and civic groups, like the Downtown Merchants Group, who complained to the City of Tacoma about crime-related activity believed tied to residents of the projects.
Pritchard told the council committee her association would conduct a thorough review of each tenant's credit and rental histories, inspect each unit and interview tenants to determine which ones can stay and which ones will be evicted.
"If we have to terminate some tenants, there’s a process for that," she said.
COMMENTS:
Good luck KWA!
Good luck KWA!
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