Lake Wales’ leaders will soon have a better gauge of the interest from developers in restoring the long-vacant Walesbilt Hotel.
July 18 is the deadline for developers to respond to the city’s Request for Qualifications, the first step in a competitive process to find a company equipped to renovate the historic structure in downtown Lake Wales.
Built in 1926, the 10-story, Mediterranean-revival hotel thrived for decades before fading into dormancy, like many of its era, and the city gained title through foreclosure in 2007. Three years later, Lake Wales Community Redevelopment Agency signed an agreement giving ownership of the Walesbilt to a company headed by Raymond Brown of Winter Haven.
Brown planned to renovate the hotel and convert it into condominiums, with retail space planned for the first floor. Though he conducted intermittent work on the building, Brown never came close to opening it for tenants.
Lake Wales filed a lawsuit in 2022, accusing Brown and his company, Dixie-Walesbilt LLC, of committing fraud in claims made while seeking the redevelopment contract. Led by lawyer Kevin Ashley, the city focused on Brown’s false claims that an Indian entrepreneur was the main financial backer of the project and that he had already begun pre-selling planned units in the hotel.
After a series of rulings in Lake Wales’ favor, the city and the CRA settled with Brown, offering him $450,000 to relinquish ownership of the Walesbilt. Lake Wales officially regained the deed in May.
Reviving the Walesbilt from its decades-long ghost status would enhance an ambitious plan to revitalize Lake Wales’ downtown. Lake Wales Connected, a long-term blueprint the city commissioned from consulting firm Dover, Kohl and Associates, contains dozens of projects, many of them set in downtown.
The list includes remaking a stretch of Park Avenue that runs along the north side of the Walesbilt. Contractors converted the street to two-way traffic, replaced pavement with bricks, installed benches and planted an array of trees and smaller plants.
“I think getting this hotel redeveloped is really symbolic of the work that we’re doing here in Lake Wales, in restoring this city to its former glory and reaching its full potential,” City Manager James Slaton said.
Panel will evaluate proposals
As the city proceeded toward regaining ownership of the Walesbilt, Slaton said he met with about 10 potential developers, including two from out of state. What attracted the companies to the hotel?
“I think it’s just the history, the architecture,” Slaton said, “and it’s the redevelopment work that we’re doing in our downtown.”
Lake Wales issued the Request for Qualifications in June, producing a 13-page packet that features conceptual renderings of the building’s restored exterior and interior. One image depicts shoppers browsing at an elegantly appointed chocolate shop on the building’s first floor.
The packet provides architectural details on the hotel, highlighting its cement arches, detailed stonework and marble floors, along with the second-floor veranda.
The hotel is rich in period ornamentation, with an Italian, coffered ceiling and Corinthian columns in the lobby and mezzanine and Palladian windows that line an arcade adjoining the lobby.
The RFQ seeks to evaluate developers “based on their technical expertise, financial capacity, project experience, and recent relevant innovative strategies for adaptive reuse of properties similar to the Walesbilt Hotel. Respondents must demonstrate their ability to preserve historic integrity, enhance economic viability, and implement best practices in redevelopment.”
Slaton said the city had not yet received any responses as of July 2, but he expected developers to send their submissions closer to the July 18 deadline. After that point, an evaluation team will score the proposals on a scale of 0 to 100, with all those receiving scores of 80 or higher considered pre-qualified and invited to the second phase.
The evaluation committee includes Jim Edwards, senior adviser with Saunders Commercial and former executive director of the Lakeland CRA; Ken Guyette of Colliers Project Leaders, the city’s development consultant; Elle Withall, director of the Bartow Economic Development Council; Ronni Wood of the Lake Wales CRA; and Marc Zimmerman, senior economic development manager for Visit Central Florida.
Following the RFQ phase, Lake Wales plans to notify “short list” developers by Aug. 8. In phase two, developers will provide detailed proposals for renovating the Walesbilt, with a deadline of Oct. 10.
Deal expected by December
The Lake Wales CRA board, which consists of the City Commission, will make the final decision on awarding a contract. Slaton has set a deadline of Dec. 15.
“It’s going to happen,” Slaton said. “We will have a contract in place by the middle of December this calendar year.”
Slaton has emphasized that the city is looking for a company to renovate and operate the Walesbilt as a hotel, rather than convert the building into apartments or condominiums.
Deputy Mayor Robin Gibson, the chair of the CRA board, shared Slaton’s confidence about the revival of the hotel.
“This is the process we talked about at the beginning – it would be in sequence, and we would toe the line on the sequences,” Gibson said. “And the target date for a contract is Dec. 15. I’ve told James, I’ve consulted my mortality tables, and we’ve got to get this thing going. I want to see the results.”
Gibson, still a practicing lawyer, is in his late 80s.
Lake Wales is taking a much different approach toward the Walesbilt than it did in the previous agreement with Brown.
“I’m looking for a partnership,” Gibson said. “We succeed together, and the better they do, the better we do. The better we do, the better they do. That’s the kind of contract we’ll be looking for.”
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lake Wales nears first deadline in process to find developer for historic Walesbilt Hotel
Reporting by Gary White, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
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