We received this comment this morning from gentle reader Southsider in the previous article thread:
A little OT, the Sunday SE has an interesting story about the old Windsor Hotel, which the current owner (Villalobos) was trying to redevelop.
"The city gave me an ultimatum, either sell it or clean it up," Villalobos said. "I wanted to renovate it myself, but I guess the city wanted to get it done right away."
The Std-Ex website incidentally has a most excellent podcast version of this story too, leaning heavily upon the "human interest angle."
Current residents have been given two-week eviction notices by the new owners. Many of them apparently don't know where they'll be residing a fortnight hence. This story smacks of the same brand of callous disregard for those economically marginalized souls in our community which we've reported other times in this space before. Once again, Emerald City residents who have barely the means to keep a roof over their heads in the best circumstances, have been summarily told to pack their bags and hit the road.
Notably, the new owners are reportedly a little foggy about the prospective use of their newly-acquired downtown property. They'll hopefully know more, once they've consulted with their architect and engineers.
Oddly, they're opting to turn a rent-generating property into a vacant one. That's their prerogative as property owners though, we guess.
Still we wonder if it might not have made more economic sense for these young and eager new property owners to have formulated their plans BEFORE they kicked out their paying tenants. At the $140 a week per unit this fully-tenanted property is reportedly generating, this property appears to be something of a cash cow which could have been sensibly milked by these young fellows, at least in the short-run, while they get their act together.
Maybe these guys are made of money though. Maybe Boss Godfrey wanted the building vacated yesterday. It's stories like these, however, that give landlords their reputation for ruthless cold-heartedness. We think these guys may well be starting off on the wrong foot -- public perception-wise -- and these guys are certainly doing humane landlords no favors.
As for the outgoing former property owner Villalobos, we suppose it was easier to just cut and run, with Boss Godfrey and his henchmen breathing down his neck.
Not every downtown property owner has the grit of a Bruce Edwards or a Michael Moyal.
We're posting this on the fly, in the interest of continuing the discussion which has erupted in the previous article thread. We'll go ahead and move existing comments on this new topic over here. Once we've done that, we hope a few more of our gentle readers will chime in.
31 comments:
Southsider:
I saw that paragraph too and noted that what Mr. Villalobos said he wanted to do with the property was renovate it as a historic [it used to be a brothel] B and B. Ah, talk about lost opportunities! I've been suggesting that a historic brothel B and B on 25th Street would be good tourist draw for a couple of years now. Instead, we'll apparently get just another condo complex.
Mr. Villalobos said he was about six months from getting the financing he needed to do the renovations himself and open his historic brothel B and B. No way to know if that is in fact so, and also no way to know if the building is below code or how long it has been if it is. But I wondered, as apparently you did, if the Administration pressured Mr. V. to get him to sell out to yet another Godfrey-favored investor.
I have no idea if that's what went on. The point I want to make here is, it is sad that the Godfrey administration's preference for cronyism of late even enables the question to come up, to even occur to me [and apparently others] as I read the story. In a well-administered city with leadership that has a firm grasp on what ethical conduct requires of public officials, such speculations would not come up at all, or would be rapidly dismissed as wildly unlikely if they did.
By the way, the article itself, which mostly looks at the impact of the closing on the residents of the old Windsor Hotel... some of whom will now apparently end up among the homeless... is good writing and good reporting.
I understand that the new owners have plans for the building, plans which will certainly be more conducive to downtown revival than the current Windsor status as one step up from flophouse is. And I understand, and agree, that the new owners are and should be free to develop the property [consistent with zoning requirements] as they wish. But giving residents with almost no financial resources two weeks notice to get out? Two weeks? Seems to me, a sense of compassion, and a desire to conduct one's business not only profitably but well [in a broader sense] could have arranged either 30 days notice, or two weeks notice with the new owners springing for two weeks Windsor-rate rent refunds to each evictee to help them a bit in the hunt for new lodgings.
"The devil take the hindmost" is not, I think, wise business practice in the long run. Businesses impact not just bottom lines but lives. The best of the businessmen [and women] I've met over the years understand that. Two weeks notice for people with nearly no resources? Wow.
Interesting article from many points of view. The story is by Jordan Muhlestein and is on the free web page of the SE.
Jordan Muhlestein has written another colorful and touching story. The pictures of the residents of the Windor Hotel tug at the heartstrings.
About the Windsor Hotel:
I concur with Curm, that 2 week's notice is rough. Surely, if the place is going to be gutted anyway, couldn't the residents' have had the last 30 days gratis?
Going over to the other motel at $140.00 a WEEK is pretty stiff. Where do these people get the funds for that kind of rent...for a crummy motel room? And, weren't the residents of motels told by city ordinance that they couldn't be long term residents of such?
We are the city with a heart. Go to St Anne's Shelter, if you can find it at it's new location on 12th St...don't 'pee' on our streets, says John Patterson.
Don't unpack your plastic bags in the 'pay by the week' motels along Washington Blvd..because you are in violation of our 'keep our city pristine' ordinance.
I'm sure the Windsor will be a lovely place and add to the ambience of 25th Street. I'm sure Mr. Villalobs's B&B would have been full of tourists. But, he needed 6 months to get his financing in place in order to proceed.
However, we've all been waiting for OVER 6 months for Chris Peterson to appear and give us his 'plan' for development of our precious parkland and golf course.
We were NEVER informed of just what Bootjack aka Peterson intends to do with the property on Wall that his best buddy, Godfrey, let him have AFTER the lease option expired. And, that was under the price offered by Tom Owens!!
So, Rueben Villalobos wanted to make a B and B out of the Windsor. He needed a little more time to get his funding together. AH, one of those fortuitous loopholes that the Administation is ready to jump into and shove out another entrepenuer.
Do we recall the muscle Godfrey and his minions applied against Moyal and his partner? They weren't sexy and cool enuf for Godfrey. But, thank goodness, Moyal fought back! Kudos to him and I hope his Indian Cuisine Restaurant opens and will be a huge success. Those two young men have big plans to make that old motel and restaurant into a showplace.
Peterson has NEVER reealed his plans for the Wall Ave. properties.
The double standards Godfrey applies are breathtakingly appalling.
Such a heart-tugging story about the residents of the Windsor Hotel. Right smack in the middle is the quote from Scot Nicol, one of the three NEW onwners of the Windsor: "We are extremely excited about the renaissance that downtown.....due to the work of people like ...Godfrey and others who share THE VISION'.
I'm happy that entrepenuers are in on the excitement of Ogden. I'm happier when they invest their own money into THEIR visions. I'm even happier when they secure their funding thru private investors or a lending institution....not on the backs of the Ogden taxpayers.
I'm curious why the SE couldn't have used Villalobos's statement about getting his funding in place and the 'city wanted to get it done right away....My plans were to keep it historical and make a bed & breakfast-type place." That would have been in keeping with the pathos of the residents' stories.
Could it be that the SE bends over for Godfrey? As so many have suggested recently??
Sharon:
You wrote: I'm curious why the SE couldn't have used Villalobos's statement about getting his funding in place and the 'city wanted to get it done right away....My plans were to keep it historical and make a bed & breakfast-type place." That would have been in keeping with the pathos of the residents' stories.
Those statements are in the story.
Curm....I'm referring to the large quote on page 10A...Scot Nicol's quote was also INside the story. This is the one that a reader will see first and give credence to. It's just another attempt, IMHO, to put Godfrey and his VISION into what was not HIS story.
(But I think you knew that)
Sharon:
Ah, I see. On the inappropriateness of the inset quote on P. 10, I think you're right. The main focus of the story is the impact of the closing on the building's residents, though it touches on other matters. Given that emphasis, quotes from Ms. Cruze [one of the residents being evicted] would have been a far better inset choice than either Mr. Short's comment or Mr. Villalobos' comment.
Had I been making up the page, I'd have used this from Ms. Cruze in the inset:
"It has been our home. It wasn't just a hotel to us.... I have no idea where I'm going. I'll probably head down to the river and camp out for a while."
Highlighting instead Mr. Short's statement seems a little out of sync with the front page focus. Nor do I think Mr. Short's statement is as good a grabber, as likely to pull somebody scanning pages into the story.
But overall it's a good piece and Jordan Muhlestein did a good job. [Query: is Jordan in this case a man or a woman? Jordan is one of those can-go-both-ways names. Anybody know?]
Curm,
Excellent choice for the inset.
Jordan is a young man. I just watched the Netcast. He and Short put together an excellent piece.
So darned touching.
Nicols and partners still don't know what they plan to do with the hotel, haven't had the engineers in and yet the tenants were kicked out.
Times like this (and many others) that I wish I were a woman of means and could alleviate some of the suffering I see that others face.
Nice words, a prayer and tears don't do much to fill tummies, put a roof over heads and soothe fears.
(maybe I'm a bleeding heart liberal after all?)
An intangible, but valuable, aspect of a business is it's good will. The new owners of the Windsor have already squandered any good will they might have engendered.
Given a choice in the future of recommending their establishment vs another in Ogden, I certainly would send people elsewhere. All this ill will and they haven't even begun renovations yet!
If they were to reconsider and give the present occupants more than two weeks to find other lodgings, and maybe even give them 30 days stay gratis to help in this difficult time, good will would replace ill.
Too bad Godfrey wasn't willing to work with the former owner.
Don't be surprised if when the complete story of this comes out that the new owners are subsidized in some way by the tax payers of Ogden.
The vast majority of "new" owners in Godfrey's "new" Ogden are pals of his and heavily subsidized in one way or the other by the city or RDA.
Do you think it is just a coincidence that this "new" owner is blowing Godfrey's horn so loudly? Bet he doesn't run into even a fraction of the BS that the old owner has had to put up with from the city.
Welcome to the brave new world of Godfreyville. Only close friends of Matt need apply.
Like a prior poster, I too am very curious as to what kind of deal Stuart Reid got from the city on the prime piece of the mall block right across from the Temple? Any one know the truth on this, or will it have to come out like all other truths that have to be wrenched from the Godfrey gang of criminals at city hall?
I think we ought to keep in mind that we don't know the details of the sale, or what preceded it or who was involved in the process. This is not city property. It was a private owner to private owner transaction. We don't know if the old owner could in fact have secured financing for his plans in six months as he claims or not. We don't know [at least I don't] if the building had a long history of code violations and the owner a long record of not taking care of them in timely fashion. Or not. We don't know if the city's ultimatum the old owner said he got was the first threat of city action, or came at the end of a long process of trying to get him to bring the place up to snuff, all of which had come to nothing. Or not.
My point was that the administration's past actions involving cronyism have, sadly, created a climate of suspicion which is not good for the administration and not good for the city. Absent the Godfrey administration's past performance in matters like Bookjack, the Reid golden parachutte, the Moyal incident, and various Peterson matters, I don't think these suspicions would have ever come up at all. Or would have been dismissed as unreasonable suspicions with little likelihood of being true.
But we should be careful not to assume that suspicions are facts, or that doubts amount evidence of wrongdoing. By the city or by the new buyers or by the old owner.
Curmudgeon
Please, I know you are a very deliberate and thinking professor kind of guy, but here's a little bit of advice: If it looks like Dog crap, if it smells like dog crap, and if it's on your lawn, don't step in it, regardless of what your analytical mind tells you.
I'm with Lionel on this one, I bet the new owners in this old hotel are being subsidized by some secret deal the mayor has cooked up.
The new owners are probably benefitting from a HUD loan or grant through Ogden City...that is usually Godfrey's way of doing things.
Frank:
It may be so. But again, this is a private owner to private owner transaction [not the sale of city land], and we don't know the facts. Given that, we ought to be careful not to assume facts not in evidence, and not to draw hard conclusions on the basis of suppositions and suspicions. Wise policy, it seems to me, in all matters, not just this one.
It makes no more sense to leap to the conclusion that there is skullduggery aftoot here involving the administration in the absence of evidence that that is so than it makes for the administration to leap to the conclusion, in the absence of evidence, that burdening the city with a flatland gondola and selling the city's largest park to build it would be a wise thing for the city to do.
Drawing conclusion without the evidence to support them being in hand first is a bad idea. Always. Even if the conclusions to be drawn will be detrimental to the Godfrey administration.
I heard on TV about the new Recreation Center in Ogden and was interested in going up to check it out. I looked in the City Weekly to get the info on it, and to my surprise I could find no mention of it anywhere in the latest issues. No ads, no articles, nothing. The City Weekly is pretty ubiquitous in the whole state, especially when it comes to advertising entertainment and recreational happenings. (There was an ad for Snow Basin summer activities for instance)
So my question to your readers is: what's going on with the place, is it even open yet? If so, is it worth the drive up from SLC to check it out? Why aren't they advertising it yet, and what is it called? I saw on channel 5 last week that it was about to open. Was that delayed?
Are there any good restaurants in Ogden (not chains)?
"We ought to careful not to assume facts not in evidence"...Wow! Curm, do you watch Forensic Files too?
Andy...c'mon up...Tec says the flowrider is worth the trip. Make sure you bring really big bucks with you.
Ogden seems to be "blessed" with low price rentals down town. For example, here's a 1 bedroom for $385. Seem to be plenty for rent.
Given enough time, doesn't seem like anyone should be made homeless.
However, two weeks is way too little time. At least one months' notice, preferably two, should have been given.
I only wish this property was going to be developed by an Ogdenite, not another out-of-stater. Looks like Scott Nicol is from Sata Rosa CA. Anyone know who his two partners are?
I certainly am glad to see this thing closed down. The disinfranchised can move in with you guys who care so much. Oh wait, you don't. You just want to point fingers...
Get this- do you want people that would be willing to live in that place in YOUR homes? Then why would you think this landlord does any longer now that he can make some real money?
Word.
PaveOgden
Observer 1:
Well, not, I don't watch forensic files. It's my guild oaths as a paid professional pedant [historian] that require me to talk that way. Hell, innit?
Pave:
You're kind of missing the point, I think. Yes, replacing an all-but-flophouse with a renovated condo complex will improve lower 25th Street. [By the way, what bar are we losing?] My only question involved giving the current residents only two weeks notice to clear out. These are folks with, apparently nearly no resources and that's not much time to arrange some place else to live. [Notice that my suggestion, turning the place into an upscale Historic Brothel B and B would also require the current occupants to leave.] It's the piddling two weeks notice I find problematic. That's all.
On the general topic of downtown development, interesting letter to the editor in today's SE. It is by someone who styles himself a strong supporter of the Mayor's "vison" and it questions the wisdom of closing the Saloman Center on Sundays. Link here. From the letter:
As an Ogden resident who wants nothing but the best for this fine city's future, I have for some time now, often against a rash of arguments, been a firm supporter of Mayor Godfrey's vision of a redeveloped Ogden, capable of attracting consumers and nature lovers alike from afar. But on this matter, I regrettably admit that our city planners have fallen well short, with the potential this center offered us all.
Haven't really thought this through much, but just on first glance, he seems to have a point that it may not be wise to close a recreational center particularly designed to lure touristas and out of towners to Junction City on one of the two days of the week most people have off. Anyway, FYI.
OgdenFan,
$385.00 rent for a MONTH? One resident of the Windsor said she'd be going to the motel for $140. WEEKLY. Big difference. Hope some of the Windsor people see that ad.
Pave,
I didn't see any finger pointing about the hotel being fixed up. We were lamenting the fact that the residents will be virtually homeless and two weeks notice to get out is too little time. Why not 30 days? The new owners aren't doing anything to the place in the meantime.
How many people are you taking in to your home?
PaveOgden
You wrote:
"now that he can make some real money?"
This as a rightous reason for this operator to kick these disadvantaged people to the curb.
That pretty much says it all for people of your ilk. Money is more important to you than your fellow travelers on this earth. It is a rather selfish inhumane place to be, I do feel sorry for you and your human deficiency.
By the way, your argument is pretty stupid, as you also appear to be, in that this is an old hotel, not the man's home as your lame assed example would have us believe.
You are the perfect low class example of the heartless scum that make up the Godfreyite movement.
Curm,
I din't hear that the Salomon Center was closed on Sundays. Is that the facts. I guess I didn't get by there yet on Sunday. If so, can they be real? Can Godfrey's religious fervor really allow him to dismember this thing before it ever really gets going? Surely the other businesses can't survive in that realm.
Godfrey ahs fervor, but it ain't religious
Tec:
Well, for openers, I guess we'd need to know who makes the decisions about hours of operation for the Saloman Center. I doubt it's Hizzonah, but it could be I guess. It's a city-owned facility so you might be right. Anybody know for sure?
Mr. Miller's theaters are open on Sunday, so it's not the whole complex that's shut down. And there may be very good business reasons for not opening Sundays. Numbers on how well climbing walls do on Sundays, maybe, and other recreational indoor businesses etc.
But now that a Godfreyista raised a question about the Soloman Center business hours in the SE, I would like to know who actually does make the decisions on that.
Know what is really sad when you come to think of it? The letter writer raised a simple, and maybe good, maybe not, question about the Soloman Center hours of operation and he felt the need to lay out his pro-Godfrey credentials first, to establish his orthodoxy first. Can't a fella write a letter to the editor questioning the wisdom of an administration decision without feeling he has to stroke the Mayor and proclaim his loyalty to the administration first? What was he afraid of? If he cared to question anything in public, they wouldn't invite him to the next Envision Ogden fundraiser?
Not a healthy situation for Junction City, seems to me.
Oz:
In re: your post on Pave Ogden.
Aw, c'mon Oz... don't hold back. Tell us what you really think...
[grin]
Mr. Ogdenlover and I were in Salt Lake yesterday so we drove to Draper to check out the new Ikea store. Even at 4PM on a Sunday afternoon, near or in Utah County, the place was packed and doing lots of business.
Keeping the Salomon Center open on Sundays seems like a smart business move. BTW, if anyone has missed it, I am NOT a Godfrey supporter but The Junction is here so we need to make the most of it.
Did it seem to anybody else that Scot Nicol, the new, heartless owner of the Windsor, seemed vacant and listless in the SE video clip? And it seemed to me he was twisting his shoulders ever so slightly from side to side as he spoke.
Has anybody noticed that children often twist their shoulders back and forth like that when they are nervous, like when they are lying to an adult?
Consistent with my habit of making wild guesses based on sometimes sketchy data that nonetheless often turn out to be true, I predict:
That Scot Nichol doesn't have a penny in the Windsor Hotel, but got all the money from an illicit, off the books "loan" from Godfrey that Nicol will "repay" when he gets his own "financing." Godfrey needed to get the Windsor emptied fast, and this guy was the only one he could find to do it.
I base this on Nicol’s body language, Godfrey’s MO, and Rudi’s observation that no actual businessman would evict paying tenants on short notice before he has any need to do so. Throwing people into the street is one thing, but no real businessman would throw good money into the street like that for no reason.
Brothel B&B? or Brothel themed?
Funny that we can consider honoring the shady history of a particular building without understanding it was the wealth created by that very business that probably built that building and a lot of downtown Ogden. My honest opinion is that downtown ogden should be allowed a sin and skin zone complete with real brothels, gambling opium dens and cannabis bars. Want to see some serious tourism? With that kind of cash we could build gondolas from Harrisville to Centerville and all the way to Powder Mountain. Hardly appropriate use of gondola technology but illustrative in that if government is in the buisness of wasting money why not get in the serious business of creating some money to blow. I am absolutely in favor of such a zone. There has been no reduction in these activities as a result of prohibition and excessive enforcement. These activities have arguably become sleazier and more dangerous as a result of our current policy but they have not gone away. In fact, it has pushed the participants out into the streets right in front of the children and degraded our downtowns. How stupid. We lose from all angles bending over to the do-gooders.
The good ladies of the evening built this town on their backs!
And, pray tell, what is the current status of the property owners?
Of the displaced tenants?
Of the entire B and B project?
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