A development company associated with Hayden Homes is considering turning the former Village Squire Motel in downtown Redmond into 26 units of workforce housing.

But Deb Flagan, vice president of community engagement for Hayden Homes, said the company is still unsure if the work is physically possible or economically feasible.

Hayden is currently under contract with the current owners of the closed motel located at 629 SW 5th that is the first thing many drivers see as they enter downtown Redmond from U.S. Highway 97. But Hayden said it is also still in the process of working with the city to understand the codes and requirements necessary for a redevelopment project that has failed in the past.

“We’ve known about it for years. This has been something the city and the county has been talking about being able to do. It is just a hard project. No one has been able to do it,” Flagan said. “We are evaluating it right now because it is going to be costly. And we are trying to figure out if it is going to work or not.”

The building is currently owned by Village Apartments RDM, county records showed. The company is owned by Haseeb Shojai and Masoud Aria, two local businessmen who purchased the motel in 2022. Shojai and Aria attempted to turn the blighted property into an apartment complex in order to provide workforce housing downtown. However, the project never penciled out.

Now Hayden Homes is assessing the situation for itself, but Flagan said the project is far from being finalized.

“The expense is to bring the property up to current codes to ensure that it is habitable and to make sure it meets safety and health standards,” Flagan said. “It is also a fairly small motel, so the economics are very challenging.”

Flagan said the city of Redmond has been a strong partner with Hayden during the feasibility process, and she wanted to make clear that it is common for Hayden’s development wing to review properties prior to making any commitments.

“We are doing this because we’ve been in the community for over 35 years,” Flagan said. “We obviously know that this is an important entrance into the city. We would love to have an opportunity to house our workforce and support our workforce in Redmond. It is a challenging project to make all of those finances work and so we are really taking a deep dive to see if it is possible.”

Shojai, one of the current owners of the motel, told the Spokesman that he and his partner simply did not have the expertise to deal with a project of this size. He said the goal was to convert the building into affordable workforce housing but the project was easier said than done.

“Unfortunately we did not have the expertise with renovation. The project was bigger than we anticipated. It was something we couldn’t really handle to be honest. We couldn’t find the right contractor, we couldn’t find the right anything,” Shojai said. “We couldn’t do it ourselves and we don’t even know where we messed up except that it was too big for us and we didn’t know how to manage the project properly.”

Shojai said he and his partner worked closely with the city of Redmond, and he said the city has a lot of great ideas for the space and offers strong support, and he hopes the new owners will figure out a way to make the project a reality.

“I don’t think it is difficult to handle, I think it is just that we did not have the proper experience. The right connections and the right people to get involved,” Shojai said. “It was our shortcoming, there was nothing wrong with the system or anything else.”

Shojai said he hopes the next person to try to convert the building into affordable housing is successful.

“I’m sure the right person can do amazing things. It is a prime location in downtown Redmond, it is a busy street, that place will stay the same for decades to come and it will only grow,” Shojai said.

Chuck Arnold, Redmond’s economic development and urban renewal program manager, confirmed the process involving the motel is in the preliminary stages, but he said things are looking like they are on the right track.

“We are talking to (Hayden Homes) about a proposal for policy makers to consider about how we make some of the units deed restricted to really help accommodate people who want to live and work downtown,” Arnold said. “That is what is being talked about right now. As (Hayden Homes) have mentioned there is no done deal yet, it has not even come to policymakers, it is really just in preliminary discussions right now but we are optimistic.”

When it comes to the Squire, Arnold said the city is prepared to work with any developer or any other organization willing to make an investment in Redmond.

He said once the private investment is secured there will be consideration of public resources if the project helps achieve the city’s goals for increasing the downtown housing stock — which currently sits at 150 units — by 10 percent each year.

So far Hayden is the farthest along in the process, Arnold said, but they are not the only one interested in the project. Arnold said there has also been talk of revamping the property to once again serve as a functioning hotel.

Arnold said they have “quite a bit of other interest” about the property because of its proximity to highways 97 and 126.

“It is really an entrance to downtown,” Arnold said. “We have lots of investment around it … so we really want to make sure we protect our own investments in the community.”