The Corvallis Inn is closing its doors, but it’s not yet clear what will happen to the property.

In an e-mail sent last week, Corvallis Inn manager Joe Cicchese notified other area lodging operators that the 120-room hotel at 1550 N.W. Ninth St. would likely be closed by Friday.

“All reservations from January 12th and beyond will/have been cancelled,” the e-mail reads. “The precise date is still being negotiated.”

Cicchese declined to comment, but an employee who answered the phone at the hotel confirmed that Friday would be its last day of operation.

The hotel has been for sale since 2004, when mortgage holder Merrill Lynch Credit Corp. bought the former Ramada Inn out of foreclosure for $1.5 million and hired a new management company to run it.

The property, along with the former Laidlaw Transportation bus barn next door, has been targeted as the site of a 90,000-square-foot retail complex by Regency Centers, a national shopping center developer. To date, however, no sales deed has been recorded for either parcel, and a regional representative for Regency could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

People who had reservations at the Corvallis Inn for Friday or beyond have been calling other local hotels in search of accommodations, and organizations that met in the inn’s conference facilities have been scrambling to find a new gathering place.

Chris Nusbaum, director of sales for the nearby Salbasgeon Suites, said his staff has taken a number of calls regarding lodging for Oregon State University’s Moms Weekend in May, a big event that traditionally packs local hotels. He’s also heard from service organizations in need of meeting space.

John Hope-Johnstone, chief executive of Corvallis Tourism, said the Corvallis Inn’s loss shouldn’t put too much strain on local lodging capacity. While it’s one of the city’s biggest hotels, its daily occupancy rates have been depressed since it lost its Ramada affiliation and the access to a nationwide reservation system that went with it.

Cicchese has managed the hotel well, Hope-Johnstone said, but it’s essentially been a caretaker operation until the property could be sold.

“Even though Joe and his gang over there did an excellent job in keeping the place running, really their job was to keep the door open until something like this happened,” he said.

Formerly part of the regional Nendels Inn chain, the hotel converted to the Ramada flag in 1993. With 120 rooms, an on-site restaurant and bar, and flexible banquet space with room for up to 440 people, it was the premier hotel in Corvallis for many years.

The Ramada ran into trouble in 2003, when it fell behind on room tax payments to the city and had trouble paying other bills, including its mortgage. Merrill Lynch foreclosed the following year, replacing operator Northwest Lodging International with a new management company, Tristar Investments.

The hotel was put up for auction on the steps of the Benton County Courthouse, but when no one offered a bid, Merrill Lynch became the owner. The name was changed to Corvallis Inn, and Tristar managed the property while Merrill Lynch looked for a buyer.

Bennett Hall is the business editor for the Gazette-Times. He can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.