The future of a once-elegant hotel is again up for consideration by the Wichita Falls City Council.
Councilors will meet at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in the Seminar Room of the Multi-Purpose Events Center, 1000 Fifth Street. The meeting is open to the public and will be livestreamed on the city’s website at wichitafalls.gov.
The panel will conduct a public hearing and vote on an ordinance finding the dilapidating building at 401 Broad St. to be dangerous and requiring the owner to demolish it within 30 days.
The item had been on a City Council agenda in January but was removed while city officials conferred with the owner.
The city said the former hotel is owned by Larry Williams of Windsor Gardens LLC in Idyllwild, California. The water has been disconnected since May 2018 and $42,852 in back taxes are owed on it.
The agenda said the roof has deteriorated, walls have holes, windows are missing and mold was found on nearly every surface. It also noted a heavy presence of mosquitoes and pigeon droppings.
A summary from the city’s Code Compliance Division concluded the old hotel is “unsafe, unsanitary, unfit for human habitation, is a fire and health hazard and is dangerous to human life and public safety.”
The hotel was built in 1982 for $5 million on 4.5 acres of land acquired from the city by Dunigan Enterprises of Abilene, and it was the first project in Wichita Falls to use low-interest industrial revenue bonds available because of blighted conditions in midtown, according to a Feb. 4, 1982, article in the Times Record News.
It was initially called the Kiva Inn, but changed names and owners over the years, according to the article. Names included Hilton, Holiday Inn, Ramada and Grand.
Last year, the city had an old hotel near the Wichita River demolished. It opened as a luxury Sheraton in 1985 and weathered floods and vandals.
Other items to be considered by councilors on Tuesday include buying a scoreboard hoist system for the Kay Yeager Coliseum for $269,831 and applying for nonmatching grant funds from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Grant.
In closed-door executive session councilors are scheduled to discuss the hotel property at 401 Broad Street and deliberate property interest that includes a single parcel of land located next to a city park. The agenda did not say which park.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Wichita Falls City Council to mull demolishing another old hotel
Reporting by Lynn Walker, Wichita Falls Times Record News / Wichita Falls Times Record News
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