When reached by phone by the Journal, Portland, Ore.-based real estate developer Curtis Rystadt was standing in line at Portland International Airport waiting to a board a plane to Atlanta for a kickoff party Hotel Indigo was throwing for owners and soon-to-be owners within the hotel chain.

“We’re really excited to make this project happen,” Rystadt says of his plan to turn the Otis Hotel building in downtown Spokane into a 112 guest-room boutique hotel that will be affiliated with the Hotel Indigo brand.

The Hotel Indigo brand is a subsidiary of InterContinental Hotels Group, a multinational British hotelier.

Ben Wilson, a senior project engineer with Fisher Construction Group, the project’s general contractor, says the building’s interior is approximately two-thirds demolished. Wilson expects the final renovation cost to be $15 million.

“I would love to see a late November, early December 2018 opening for the hotel,” Wilson says.

Fisher Construction is based in Burlington, Wash., and has a Spokane office in the James S. Black Building, at 107 S. Howard. Case Design Group, of Portland, is the project architect.

The Otis Hotel Building is a 106-year-old structure located at 110 S. Madison. The building had been vacant for more than seven years before Rystadt purchased it last June for $1.4 million through his real estate holding company, 110 S. Madison Realty LLC, from former owner Coastal Community Bank, of Everett, Wash.

Wilson says design plans for Spokane’s first Hotel Indigo are still under review by the city.

When first built, the structure housed the Willard Hotel. The name later changed to the Atlantic Hotel, Milner Hotel, Earle Hotel, and then the Otis. In its later years, before shutting down, the Otis housed apartment units for low-income residents.