PORT ANGELES – With a news release on Friday The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe (LEKT) confirmed the rumors that have completed negotiations and signed a purchase agreement on the sale of the property that is currently home to the Downtown Hotel, Cornerhouse Restaurant, and Necessities and Temptations retail store. The purchase is expected to close in mid-April.

Those properties are adjacent to the site of the Tribe’s planned 100-room hotel on Front Street.

LEKT officials are working with current business owners to discuss the continued operation of the Downtown Hotel and Cornerhouse Restaurant for the foreseeable future, although a possible Phase 2 expansion of the planned hotel is also being considered. Tribe spokesman Michael Peters:

As for the Necessities and Temptations building, it’s slated to be torn down sometime this Spring in the first phase of the project.

Peters says the lot will later be used for parking.

The Tribe continues with planning and design for the new hotel.  Environmental cleanup and the remediation of all hazardous substances on the site will get under way once proper permits are in place, which Peters says is moving on schedule.