Condemned Rock Hill motel won’t make demolition deadline

Asbestos issues at the Executive Inn will keep the condemned motel standing a little while longer.

The inn will miss the deadline for demolition agreed to with the city when the Anderson Road structure was condemned last fall. An agreement reached in January between the city of Rock Hill and Executive Inn owner Punam Patel called for demolition of the building to be complete by April 1.

City building official Mike Nugent said the company initially initially approved to do the asbestos abatement on the 50-year-old structure discovered more asbestos at the scene than an inventory of the property had expected.

“There was just a larger quantity of asbestos than they thought,” Nugent said. “For example, there’s a sprayed-on material on the ceilings of the hotel rooms that looks like a ‘pop corn’ ceiling, and the material they found contained more asbestos than they were expecting.”

Clear Site Industrial of Charlotte resubmitted its bid for the project based on the revised asbestos numbers, and a second review of the property had to be conducted by the Department of Health and Environmental Control before they could issue a new permit.

Nugent estimates the delay because of the re-bidding process set demolition back by three weeks to a month, but Clear Site began work on the front office building this week, and demolition of that building is scheduled to begin Monday.

The city condemned the inn in October after inspectors found multiple structural issues and the failure of H.S. Enterprises, the company that owns the property, to make sufficient progress addressing the issues. The condemnation notices plastered on the doors of the inn declared it unfit for human habitation.

About 100 people were living out of the hotel at the time it was condemned and were given a week to move out. Many, including parents of young children, said the Executive Inn was their only affordable housing option, and many had to seek assistance from charities to find other places to stay.

Patel was charged with eight counts of violating city ordinances in Rock Hill’s environmental court for failing to maintain the property. An initial court date was pushed back when Patel reached an agreement with the city to demolish the structure.

The owner and his attorney, Brian McCoy, did not return calls for comment on Tuesday.

Patel’s next appearance in environmental court is set for April 13. Charges against the owner were to be dismissed if the demolition agreement was carried out, although the agreement offers the possibility to push back the demolition deadline to June 1 if “unforeseen circumstances” occur.

City spokeswoman Katie Quinn said the city still considers the agreement valid despite the expected delay. Nugent said the amount of asbestos found on the site is “clearly an unforeseen circumstance.”

This story was originally published March 24, 2015 at 12:35 PM with the headline "Condemned Rock Hill motel won’t make demolition deadline."