By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Frank Male and Linda Hetzler are spending about $400,000 each to transform two eyesores in downtown Yachats.
Male bought a vacant, decaying former wine shop and two cabins at the intersection of U.S. Highway 101 and West Fourth Street. When remodeling is finished this spring he plans to move his guitar shop from Santa Cruz, Calif. and rent out the cabins.
Hetzler, owner of the Drift Inn, bought the vacant laundry building adjacent to her Yachats Mercantile store and added rooms to expand her hotel business.
And, Robert Anthony, owner of the Luna Sea restaurant, is spending $20,000 to replace tents on the south side of his building with a permanent, wooden structure for semi-outdoor eating and music.
Although there are a few notable empty buildings downtown, the three simultaneous and visible projects are adding a sense of confidence to businesses ready to expand.
Hetzler said buying the vacant two-story laundromat in October 2017 was as much a defensive measure as one to expand her business. The building, which already sat partly on her property, had a spring underneath it, causing flooding problems for the hardware store and restaurant.
“Getting the building solved a lot of problems for my other buildings,” she said.
The building cost her $300,000; she is spending more than $90,000 to remodel it – adding four hotel rooms, an office, game room and a kitchen/laundry area.
The four new rooms bring the total at the Drift Inn to 20, including four hostel-type rooms.
“Having the hotel rooms here has really helped the restaurant,” she said. “The restaurant still makes the bulk of the income but it’s much more expensive to operate.”
The new second-floor guest rooms have views over Highway 101 to the ocean, small balconies and continue the funky vibe from the restaurant. Hetzler and her son did the bathroom tile work, picking through sale bins at high-end Portland tile stores to come up with an eclectic mix to help create their own designs, including turquoise fish-scale looking floors.
Hetzler’s husband, Tom Smith, and local contractors did most of the remodeling work. They are waiting to get an occupancy permit to start renting the rooms because of a Lincoln County question over use of the laundry room.
The remodeled structure means the Drift Inn will add two employees to check in hotel guests (until now guests had to go stand at the bar), to clean and do the business’s laundry – which normally is shipped to Portland.
After finishing the remodel, Hetzler will attack some outside spaces on the south side the inn, re-doing landscape and installing patios as sitting areas for guests.
With the motel expansion and a back deck added to the restaurant last year, the city of Yachats is asking Hetzler to add seven more off-street parking spots for her businesses to bring them to 27 total. She has to determine if there is a way to add parking around a manufactured home on East Second Street north of the motel that she uses for employee housing or to seek a variance from the Planning Commission.
Remodeling done in late spring?
Male has also been doing much of the work on his reclamation of the former wine shop. A contractor had to replace the roof on all three structures, the most expensive part so far of the $150,000 Male said he is spending on the remodeling.
There were rotten walls that had to be replaced, decking and some siding replaced, and the big picture windows of the store removed and reframed.
“But it was framed really good; the bones are strong,” he said of the cabins built in 1945 and the store in 1985.
Male, who owns a cottage on Ocean View Drive, said he bought the property “sight unseen” last summer with the intent to sell his California properties and move his guitar shop to Yachats. Online sales make up the bulk of his business.
“We will have music and art and stuff like that,” he said, taking advantage of the enclosed deck as well. “Right now I’m just trying to get it water tight and up and running.”
The cabins are 400 square feet, with a small kitchen and bathroom.
“They’re cute little places,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll get someone who wants to work here as well and can help keep an eye on the place.”
The new Luna restaurant building will replace tents that Anthony had been using for four years. Tired of putting the tents up and down, battling wind and rain, Anthony said he decided to do something more permanent “but with more comfortable outside seating that’s still pet friendly.”
The 20-by-20 foot space will also have an enclosed extension on its east side where musicians can perform. The roof is a clear, plastic polycarbonate sheeting and interior walls will be of cedar.
When finished by the end of May, Anthony said he plans to fill the new space with plants and call it “The Garden Room.”
“I’m excited about it,” he said. “The tents were just getting too stressful.”
Other developments around downtown:
- Three Newport-area men are working on the interior and fixtures for their new restaurant and bar called the Beach Street Kitchen located in the former Heidi’s restaurant across from the Post Office. They hope to open in April.
- Lisa Fogg, owner of the vacant Alder restaurant property at the corner of Second Avenue and Beach Street, still has the half-acre commercial property on the market with an asking price of $499,000. Fogg told YachatsNews.com there has been “some credible” interest in buying the property and others interested in leasing the space for retail or restaurant use. “Luckily I am able to hold the building until the right person comes along,” she said. “I am working on some repairs … I have several ideas for the space once repairs are done in the next couple of months. It is possible I will move on that myself … it is one of the best retail locations with the best parking.”
- Pat and Suki Miller of Yachats, owners of the site of the former Beulah’s and Landmark restaurants on Highway 101 at Ocean View Drive, hope to have a plan for the property by the summer. They had the building demolished last fall because it was not restorable.
- Yachats Cannabis Co., the city’s first marijuana dispensary, moved into the vacant building owned by Nathan Bernard at 430 N. Highway 101 and opened for business in late January.
