Executive Inn work comes to a halt over still more asbestos

When a wrecking crew took out the office building at the old Executive Inn back in April, it looked like the entire motel would soon come down. But the condemned structure on Anderson Road in Rock Hill may be standing for a few more months, thanks to the same problem that has delayed work until now: Inspections have uncovered more asbestos in the half-century-old inn.

Work has largely stopped while officials work to document all the asbestos within the V-shaped inn. An inspection team for the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control toured the property Wednesday and uncovered more undocumented asbestos that will need to be removed before demolition can be completed.

This was “at least the third” such inspection since the inn was condemned as “unfit for human occupancy” last October, according to Tim Rowe, project manager for the firm Clear Site Industrial of Charlotte, which contracted with owner H.S. Enterprises to handle abatement work at the site.

Once all the known asbestos is cataloged, there will need to be yet another inspection before the building can actually come down. After that, it should come down fairly quickly, since crews have already removed everything from the interior of each motel room down to the walls.

“You have to gut it down to a shell,” Rowe said. “There’s nothing left except a concrete block wall and concrete ceiling.”

But unexpected asbestos keeps turning up. After inspectors cleared the office building for demolition and it was knocked down, more asbestos was found within the rubble and more abatement work had to be done before the pile was removed from the site.

“Once the layers are removed, there are more layers underneath,” Rowe said.

The latest inspection uncovered asbestos within the spackling of the walls and ceiling.

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.

About 100 people were living in the inn 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.

Owner Punam Patel still faces eight counts of violating city codes on the property, but his case, which was set to be heard in municipal court this week, was continued until October as the demolition work on the site is ongoing. The city has agreed to drop the charges once the site is cleared.

“It’s a long process to take something like this down,” said Brian McCoy, Patel’s attorney. “(The city) knows this is beyond his control.”

The expectation is that by the time the case returns to court, the inn will be entirely demolished, a full year after residents there were told to move out.

“I certainly hope so,” McCoy said. “But I didn’t think it would take this long.”

This story was originally published July 9, 2015 at 7:39 PM with the headline "Executive Inn work comes to a halt over still more asbestos."