At 10:47 a.m. Wednesday, Paducah took ownership of the Executive Inn.
“This is a great day for Paducah and the downtown,” Mayor Bill Paxton said after a multitude of documents were signed transferring ownership. “We are going to move as quickly as possible to tear it down and get a new hotel in place.”
The city began immediate plans for security and to winterize the hotel to prevent water pipes from freezing and damaging furnishings and equipment that might have some value.
Soon after the purchase was final, a Sun reporter and photographer joined Downtown Development Director Steve Doolittle for a tour. Trash littered the hotel from vandals who had ransacked desks, file cabinets, offices, storage rooms and suites. Chemical fire extinguishers also had been activated and sprayed on walls and the floors.
Sofas and other furnishings that once filled the lobby were overturned and damaged. Paintings, wide screen televisions and other furnishings were missing.
“We don’t want this kind of activity to continue under our watch,” Doolittle said as he surveyed the vandalism and thefts. “We’re going to have security and put plywood up over windows and doors where people can enter.”
The city’s purchase of the hotel for $1.8 million from Logan Asset Backed Fund ends three years of uncertainty of the 27-year-old, 436- room hotel along the Ohio River. It closed in September 2008 after utilities were shut off for nonpayment.
Renovation promises by former owner Bhupinder Singh, who purchased it in July 2007 for $5.7 million, were never fulfilled. He turned down offers to sell it at a profit, including $8 million by the city in March 2008.
He finally agreed to sell it to Florida hotel developer Bill Parsons for $9 million, but Parsons was never able to obtain $40 million financing he said was needed for the purchase and renovation.
In the end, Singh relinquished ownership to Logan, which held a $3.5 million mortgage, for a $75,000 cash payment, most of which was used to cover legal fees. Singh made interest payments of about $35,000 a month from July 2007 until payments stopped last January.
Logan lost $1.7 millio
n plus accumulated interest and penalties of about $1 million. It will recoup some of those funds from an insurance claim for about $500,000 in damages from a 2008 wind storm.
|
