The newest owner of the most beloved and beleaguered building in downtown Ukiah, the Palace Hotel, was applauded and praised Wednesday after showing the Ukiah City Council his progress cleaning out the battered structure he bought “one year, one month and four days ago.”
“I can hardly believe my eyes,” Council member Mari Rodin told Tom Carter after he showed numerous photos of once-grand rooms now cleared of debris from collapsed flooring and other damage. “Congratulations, and thank you for all of the work you’ve done. I can’t believe it’s real. But when it’s going to be done? I can’t wait anymore!”
Vice-Mayor Susan Sher also complimented Carter, a Lake County resident who worked on the revitalization of Upper Lake’s Tallman Hotel, on the improvements revealed in the before and after photographs he showed the City Council during the board’s Nov. 19 meeting.
“I’m very impressed with what you’ve done, and there’s a little breath of fresh air,” Sher said. “But, there’s such a long way to go, and you’re going to need a ton of money. Who would put $30 to $40 million into that building?”
“It’s not going to be that much, it’s not even going to be close to that much,” said Carter, estimating that it would be more like half that, $19 to $20 million, to revive the long-empty building, which has been shuttered for more than three decades. Without naming anyone, Carter said he had “talked to a lot of investors, architects, engineers, tax people, and three people who want to put a restaurant in there.”
“Even if its $20 million, who is going to invest?” said Sher, repeating Rodin’s request for “some sort of timeline” regarding when Carter thinks the renovation project might be completed.
“I’m trying, and I’ve done more work in one year than has been done in 30 years,” said Carter, explaining that he tried to buy the building “for four years before I actually got it, and that four years made a lot of difference. When I first looked at this building, the bar (downstairs) was in perfect shape, now it’s pretty well half-rotten.
“This is a start, to get this thing out of code enforcement and get that red tag off it,” Carter continued.
“People see the potential, and there is a lot of interest. The good news for me is that on the business side, the money pencils out, but one of my biggest fears is getting into bed with the wrong people.”
As for a timeline, Carter said he was “on track to do this building in two years, if I had all the funding and permits (in place). But those could take me at least a year to get, so maybe four, or five years? I understand the city has been waiting a long time.”
“I wish you well,” Sher said, and Council member Heather Criss encouraged Carter to “not be a stranger,” and give the board more frequent updates.
City Manager Sage Sangiacomo then clarified that “I don’t know if we have a red tag” necessarily on the building, but that city officials were concerned about “the threat to public safety (the building poses), and can you speak to the timeline to being able to clear the health and safety concerns, like stabilization of the building, (because) those are the issues the city needs to see addressed.”
“I think we’re very close to that,” said Carter, and Sangiacomo reiterated that the city’s “primary concern is to clear the health and safety risk that had been previously identified, and I encourage you to continue working with our building department.”
“Thank you for the stabilization work that you’ve already done,” said Mayor Doug Crane, who before Carter’s presentation said: “We look forward to hearing a bit about your fun project, (and) you have to have a somewhat twisted sense of fun.”
During his presentation, Carter showed photos of the Otis Elevator, which he said “two days ago had its 100th birthday. Just for nostalgia, I’d like to get it operating again, but it won’t be the main elevator.”
After taking out tons and tons of debris — “You don’t want to see my Dump bill, it was ridiculous” — Carter said that “the asbestos has all been taken out” and all of the roof patches have “slowed down the (water encroachment) at least 50-percent, if not more. Several areas are staying totally dry now.”
One of the big reasons “why the water started coming in is because somebody sold off all the skylights a while back,” Carter noted, adding that “most of the sprinkler system was taken out and sold off,” as well, but now that he owns it, he hopes to “keep as many of the original elements as I can, (because) I want it to look old. People are going to go there because they want to see a historical hotel.”
(Ukiah Daily Journal)
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