[5] The fire, which broke out on the evening of February 28, 1950, burned through the night for thirteen hours and caused an estimated US$1,000,000 (equivalent to $12,660,000 in 2023) in damages[4] to the 5-story building as well as adjacent structures.

The building also incorporated mixed-use functions, with street level store fronts and the entire third floor dedicated as office space to be rented out.

[13] The Ridpath Tower, which was designed by architect Ned Hyman Abrams of San Francisco, was the first all-welded steel frame high-rise building west of the Mississippi River[14] at the time of its construction.

Abrams is also notable for designing the General Mills Cereal Plant in Lodi, California in 1946 (just six years before the Ridpath Tower opened).

This was evidenced by the continual expansion of the hotel during its peak and the fact that the 1952 tower incorporated features like modern bathrooms and a drive-up ramp garage.

While the building could be demolished for $500,000 to $1,000,000, there is a strong belief among city leaders that a redeveloped/restored Ridpath Hotel can play a key role in "stabilizing downtown" (similar to the aforementioned projects down the road) and as such, they are working with developers to find a solution to save and redevelop the property.

"[5] As of 2012[update], a group of developers share the same vision and have lined up $25 million and have plans to purchase the entire complex and turn it into an "entertainment Mecca.

City leaders and developers are excited about a contemporary intervention for the old hotel, similar to the adaptive re-use of the nearby Steam Plant Square.

Their visions of renewal will incorporate philosophical and theoretical issues of preservation in the larger context of what role the building will play as part Spokane's urban fabric.

The current visions for the hotel parallel the preservation philosophies of prominent people such as architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable.

Huxtable's view is that the recycling and adaptation of buildings (into the contemporary context) "will keep them a living part of today's cities and communities.

Additionally, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, a prominent French architect and theorist, argued that restoration is not to "repair nor rebuild it" but to "reestablish it in a finished state which may in fact never have actually existed.