Burien again is looking for a developer to build a full-service hotel and conference center in the city's downtown business district.

The planned hotel, with about 200 guest rooms plus deluxe condominiums on the top floors, will be located on a 1.25 acre site on Southwest 150th Street west of First Avenue South and east of Washington Mutual.

Proposals from developers to join the city in a public/private partnership with the design and construction of this mixed-use facility are due by June 30.

Dick Loman, Burien's economic development manager, said last week the city issued a request for qualifications "to reach as many developers as we can."

The hotel/conference center the city wants "represents $100 million of risk capital ... that sorely limits the number of developers" who can take on the project.

Burien purchased the site in 2002 and signed in December 2005 a development agreement with Park Development, a Federal Way-based hotel management company, for the construction of a boutique-type hotel, conference center and deluxe condominiums.

But last December, Park Development, which has successfully developed several other hotel properties, notified the city that it was unable to continue with the project.

"As sometimes happens in development work, they ran into field construction problems on a hotel they were completing in Lakewood," Loman said.

"They couldn't maintain the time schedule that we had signed with them. Their time schedule for development was similar to our agreement with Urban Partners for Town Square, obtaining financing and building within a certain time period."

Loman called the pull-out by Park Development "a big disappointment, but these things happen."

He noted that a few years ago, three projects in downtown Bellevue were put on hold after work had begun. All have been completed since then.

Burien "got all their conceptual drawings and work product legally assigned to us in exchange for their unconditional release from the agreement," he added.

Burien's boutique hotel would be "like the Alexis in downtown Seattle or the Sorento on First Hill," Loman said.

"We don't have anything against the large chains, but they're in SeaTac and Tukwila. Burien is ready for a boutique hotel that will compete with those guys."

The conference center would have a capacity of about 200-400 people for small to medium-size gatherings.

"We have a superior location to [hotels and conference centers] in SeaTac or Tukwila," Loman declared. "With no disrespect for those places, there is no place for convention-goers to go at night besides the restaurant in their hotel.

"We have Southwest 152nd Street with eclectic restaurants and walk-to destination type of stuff."

In addition, he continued, a new transit center with transit-oriented retail development is about to be built west of the planned hotel.

"Instead of spending 40 bucks on a cab, they can go over to the transit station" and take a bus into Seattle.