Kex Iceland, the company behind a 215-guest hostel in Reykjavik, Iceland, will open its first location inside the United States this fall in Portland, Ore. Kex Portland will offer both private and shared rooms, accommodating a total of 156 hotel guests, and target family, group and solo travelers.
“We are adjusting our ideas, concepts, design, culinary and beverage programs to include what we think is the coolest stuff about Portland itself,” Kex Iceland owner Kristinn Vilbergsson said in a statement. “It will have the same underlying ideas as our Reykjavik hotel, but the execution will feel totally at home in Portland.”
Kex Iceland, Portland restaurant group ChefStable and local real estate company Green Light Development own the property with ChefStable set to manage it. Kex Portland will be housed in a fully restored and updated 1912 building.
The hotel’s common spaces will include Vivian, an all-day restaurant and modular event space for music, art and performance on the ground floor, and Dóttir, a rooftop bar on the fourth floor. It also will feature 850 square feet of meeting and event space, a sauna and a communal kitchen.
Culinary Director Ólafur Ágústsson, who led the kitchen at the group’s Michelin-starred restaurant Dill, will guide the hotel’s food and on-site catering program. He will work together with Executive Chef Alex Jackson, who most recently served as chef de cuisine at the Michelin-starred Sons & Daughters restaurant in San Francisco.