The Rodeo City Inn is undergoing renovations Feb. 19, 2024, off exit 202 on Interstate 84 a few miles west of Pendleton. The new owner, however, is not talking about what is going on at the property.

PENDLETON — When given enough time and money just about anything can be made new again.

That seems to be the mission of Pendleton Property Management for the down-in-the-dumps Rodeo City Inn west of the city just off Exit 202 of Interstate 84.

“Law enforcement were called out there on a regular basis,” said Umatilla County Commissioner John Shafer. He should know as one of his previous assignments was running the county’s 911 dispatch center.

“We were out there all the time,” he said. “Drug activity was out there and burglaries, because even if you’re committing crimes, sometimes you’re also a victim of crimes. I think there was some sex abuse stuff out there periodically. So there was a whole variety of crime.”

Shafer said the property’s demise seemed to begin around 2010 or so, when the next-door truck stop closed permanently after having several owners. When the restaurant shut down, the hotel next to it attracted a less-than-desirable clientele and problems at the hotel blossomed.

“The property became a haven for people with nowhere else to go,” Umatilla County Commissioner Dan Dorran said.

The frequent calls to law enforcement led the county to board up the property.

“We boarded it up to keep the transient population out,” Shafer said. “That was a place where bad people did bad things.”

The building is very much an open book for anyone traveling I-84 around Exit 202. It is highly visible. The concrete frame looks plumb and square but there are no doors or windows. It appears much, if not all, of the finish work has been removed.

Pendleton Property Management declined to comment on what is happening at the hotel, saying the property’s owner, UCRE LLC, associated with Benjamin Shoval of Yakima and Seattle, gave instructions not to discuss the matter.

Shoval during a March 4 phone call said, “I just can’t discuss any of it at this point.”

Dorran said a previous owner foreclosed on the property in 2014. They had it basically overnight, and then it was bought out, he said, and there have been several owners since then.

“I actually lived there when I went to college,” he said. “It was nice because they had maid service and everything else.”

Sale prices for the building have followed a yoyo path since March 21, 2002, when the property sold for $540,000 in 2002. Dorran said since them, “there basically have been 10 owners of that property.”

Shoval’s company PLSVCS LLC bought it on Nov. 6, 2020, for $239,125. He transferred the property to his own UCRE LLC for zero dollars in a quit-claim deed filed in King County, Washington, on Dec. 8, 2020.

The Umatilla County Planning Department reported UCRE has a green light to improve the property with no further applications or approvals needed.

“I think if it was cleaned up and there was onsite management, it would prevent the bad actors from moving back in,” Shafer said. “There’s a potential for it, and the location is fantastic. Right off the freeway, they’d be close to any of the activities out there, even if you flew into the airport for people flying drones, or whatever they’re flying in for. So it could be a very nice place.”