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By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter 

Cheney's AAA motel is a mixed bag of rooms

 

Last updated 6/15/2017 at 10:59am

Paul Delaney

Ryan Delaney, owner of the AAA Motel in Cheney, is not so sure what the future holds for his unique property.

A little over a year ago, Ryan Delaney was rushed out of paradise in Hawaii and thrust into the new role of the owner of a family business.

Now the question he is faced with is what does the future hold for the AAA Motel, nestled below First Street in Cheney and along two sets of railroad tracks.

"If I have my math correct I think my dad bought this property in 1991," Delaney said. "I was seven years old."

When his father, Michael, who passed away in March 2016, bought it, it was pretty much bare canvas, nothing remodeled, Delaney said. The structure has back doors that look out upon the tracks for the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe and Eastern Washington Gateway railroads, and a freshly-tilled garden plot.

The buildings that make up the motel once served as housing for railroad workers, but that was in the 1950s, long before the 33-year-old Delaney was around.


Over the last 25 or so years, the grounds have been landscaped and a lot of remodeling done to update it. "It took a 15-year process to get things done, it was kind of a father-son team," Delaney said.

With word of his father's passing, "I literally picked up everything and left two days after he died," Delaney said of his move from the island of Oahu.

"I had to get back and make sure it wasn't looted and raided," Delaney said.

His wife Krista taught at Roosevelt High School on Oahu and had to finish out the school year. She was able to move back and land a job at Delaney's alma mater, Cheney High School.

"So it's just been her and I trying to find out how to do a business, keep track of the books, do a few updates here and there," Delaney said.


Delaney recently put the business on the market. While he was left the property, there was no capital with which to make much needed improvements.

The business has 35 total units, 15 that are apartments, 10 motel rooms and another 10 that need large amounts of work.

"Those 10 vacant rooms are just dilapidated," Delaney said. "I'm going one room at a time trying to figure out what I know how to do. I'm not a handyman by any means, I've been on You Tube pretty much nonstop trying to figure out how to change locks, plumbing and all of it learning a little bit here and there."

In contrast, Michael Delaney owned a construction company prior to becoming involved with the motel so the repair part was a piece of cake. "I don't think he ever once had a contractor in here," Delaney said.

Built over 60 years ago, much of the décor is all original, like linoleum in the bathrooms, for instance. "It needs a lot of updating," Delaney said.

The side trip from Cheney - where he graduated from high school in 2002 to Hawaii for Delaney, who attended school and worked as a radio personality, was a curious journey.

"After high school, my girlfriend at the time (now wife, Krista) and I were going down to Oregon for family Thanksgiving and my uncle from Hawaii was there," Delaney said.

Krista was about to graduate from college with a teaching degree and was informed jobs in Hawaii were as plentiful as the islands' pineapples.

On the way home the couple discussed the idea of the move but they needed to be married first, Krista's parents insisted.

Krista Delaney would later go to Seattle for an interview in March 2004 and just weeks before their July wedding, she had a job. That solved the dilemma as to where the couple would honeymoon.

AAA Motel is located at 12 Columbia St. To contact the motel call (509) 235-4058.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.

 

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