One of the Tri-Cities best-known hotels is becoming a Holiday Inn

Richland’s most prominent hotel is getting a new look and a new brand following its 2018 sale to a local hospitality company.

Details are sketchy, but the owners of the Richland Red Lion Hotel, aka the Hanford House, are preparing to convert it to a Holiday Inn.

Hanford Hospitality House LLC disclosed its plans in an application for city building permits to remodel the property.

The application does not indicate if it will be a Holiday Inn Express or another version of the Holiday Inn brand. The Tri-Cities has two Holiday Inn Express hotels, one in Pasco and one on Center Parkway near Columbia Center.

Red Lion and Holiday Inn occupy similar spots in the hotel market. Both cater to the middle of the market with moderate prices and amenities.

But renovating existing hotels is an affordable alternative to building a new property to gain market share.

The Tri-City hotel market currently has nearly 4,300 hotel rooms, a gain of 10 percent since 2015, according to Visit Tri-Cities figures.

Hanford House sold in 2018

Hanford Hospitality House, led by Gurbir Sandhu, bought the Richland Red Lion and its five-plus acres of Columbia River waterfront from Spokane-based Red Lion Corp. in 2018.

It paid $7.15 million, or around $48,000 per room, for the 149-room property.

Amenities include an outdoor pool, two restaurants and 10,000 square feet of event space.

Nearby, a remodel of Richland’s Shilo Inn, 50 Comstock, is well underway as its new owners prepare to convert it to a Best Western “SureStay Collection” hotel.

Traum Ventures, an Oregon entity connected to Beaverton-based J & J Hospitality Group LLC, purchased the Shilo in 2018 for $3.6 million.

Hanford House and Shilo both were built in 1970 with one side facing the Columbia River and the other toward George Washington Way.

It’s one of the busiest streets in the Tri-Cities with about 42,000 vehicles a day.

Unlike the Hanford House, the Shilo was built on property leased from the city of Richland.

The Hanford House has been a popular meeting site and venue for government meetings, political rallies, science fiction conventions and countless private parties over the years.

It’s not the first time the property was sold and rebranded. In 1997, Red Lion Inns were purchased by Doubletree hotels and renamed.

By 2003, a series of industry transitions restored the Red Lion name to hotel properties in Richland, as well as Kennewick and Pasco. The Pasco hotel has a different owner.

This story was originally published July 29, 2019 at 6:54 PM.