A sign in the window at the Red Carpet Inn and Fanta Suites says its closed for maintenance effective Oct. 24, 2022.
Daily Journal File Photo
The demolition of a troubled Greenwood hotel will be moving forward.
Since April, the fate of the Red Carpet Inn and Fanta Suites, 1117 E. Main St., has been up in the air after a Johnson County judge granted the hotel’s request for judicial review of a city of Greenwood order for demolition. Superior Court 1 Judge Kevin Barton also issued a stay of the order on April 22.
On Nov. 21, the stay of the demolition order was lifted by Superior Court 4 Judge Marla Clark — paving the way forward for the hotel’s destruction. Clark also dismissed the hotel’s request for judicial review, granted a request from city attorneys for an immediate judgment to be issued in their favor and removed the city’s plan commission as a party to the matter, according to online court records.
Hotel owner Ahmed Mubarak did not respond to a request for comment about the decision and the hotel’s next steps. Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers said the city was “very appreciative” of Judge Clark’s quick decisions following a hearing on Nov. 15.
“We’re very happy that she made that decision quickly,” Myers said Tuesday.
The demolition will not happen right away, however, as there is still time for Mubarak to appeal Clark’s decision to an appellate court. There is a 30-day period for this, Myers said.
If an appeal is not filed, then Mubarak will have five days to start the demolition process. If he doesn’t after five days, the city will, Myers said.
The demolition would not be at taxpayers’ expense, he said.
“It’ll go back against the property. There will be a lien imposed against his property,” Myers said.
As city officials wait during the 30-day period, they plan to go ahead and solicit bids from contractors for the demolition. Officials want to be ready to go ahead if the demolition process is not started by Mubarak, Myers said.
The city’s legal battle against the hotel has stretched over a year as city officials have fought for the hotel to be improved, vacated and now demolished.
Concerns about the conditions of the hotel have been rising since June 2021. Inspections in June 2021, September 2022, November 2022 and January 2023 all found numerous health and safety violations at the hotel.
The Red Carpet Inn repeatedly failed the inspections. Although work was being done to remedy the issues, not enough progress was being made, officials have said over the course of the last year.
The order of demolition was initially issued on March 17. City officials argue the hotel is unsafe, and cited the city’s unsafe building laws in the demolition order. An inspection of the hotel in January showed that there were unsanitary and unsafe conditions inside the hotel. While some progress had been made in correcting the conditions, a lot of work was still needed, officials said.
On April 25, the city’s Advisory Plan Commission held a hearing on the demolition order. After hearing testimony from both the city’s and hotel’s attorneys, the commission unanimously upheld it.
However, the hotel has disagreed with the city’s characterizations of the hotel’s conditions and the demolition order. Attorneys for the hotel filed a petition on April 20 asking a judge to review the order and to stay it.
In that petition, hotel attorneys said Mubarak would suffer “irreparable harm” if the structures on the properties were demolished. They also alleged that the commission failed to consider evidence that the property doesn’t violate unsafe building laws and that the city was trying to do an end run around the judicial process.
In the initial Superior Court 4 case, the city filed an injunction to force the hotel to be vacated in November 2022. Judge Clark ruled the following December that employees who lived at the hotel had to vacate the property.
In January, the hotel filed a counterclaim against the city, denying many of officials’ claims and accusing them of deliberately acting to damage the hotel. In March, the city denied most of the allegations made in the counterclaim. They then asked Clark to make a summary judgment — a judgment entered against one party without a full trial — on the counterclaim and rule against the hotel.
Since then, the case has been making its way through the court system and many motions for time extensions were filed. In September, a hearing on the outstanding motions was set to take place.
Before the hearing, it was revealed that a purchase agreement for the hotel could possibly be signed between the hotel owner and a third party. However, city officials planned to continue with the demolition regardless of whoever owned it, court documents show.
But the purchase deal fell apart, media reports said.
The September hearing was canceled and a new hearing was set for Nov. 15. In October, Mubarak’s legal counsel left the case and requested more time for Mubarak to respond to the city’s request for a summary judgment.
On Oct. 6, attorneys representing the city objected to the request for more time, saying the hotel has had plenty of time to respond and that the delay in proceedings had caused harm to the city in terms of financial costs and the use of additional public safety resources on the property, filings show. Judge Clark later denied the hotel’s request.
The latest hearing in the case was on Nov. 15, where testimony was given about the status of the hotel and the case.
Clark’s rulings in favor of the city — removing the stay of the demolition order, dismissing the judicial review petition, removing the plan commissions as a party and granting a summary judgment — were issued six days later, online court records show.
