No takers for Cortina's $2M bid
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L.W. “Biff” Hawkey Jr. (background) of Hostmark Hospitality Group looks on while attorney Richard Darby (right) talks with the former owner of the Cortina Inn, Bob Harnish, on Friday. Vyto Starinskas / Rutland Herald |
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By Brent Curtis Staff Writer - Published: May 30, 2009
MENDON — Bidding on the closed Cortina Inn opened at $2 million on Friday but no one was buying.
Fourteen bidders turned out for a court-ordered auction outside the 96-room inn. But once the minimum bid amount was announced, the developers and hotel managers in the bidding ring fell silent.
"I expected this today. I fully expected that price," Rutland developer John Kalish said after the auction ended. "But I don't think most of the folks here today did."
That's because the inn, last appraised at more than $10 million in 2007, plummeted in value after a pair of water tests in the past two years turned up concentrations of Legionella, the bacteria responsible for Legionnaires' disease.
The inn was closed by the state Department of Health following the second failed test last year.
The long closure might have raised questions about what the building looked like inside, but none of the bidders were allowed inside the hotel on Friday in accordance with a Department of Health order.
Kalish, who toured the interior two weeks ago, said the bidders wouldn't have liked what he'd seen — a bottom floor covered in black mold, which bloomed after workers ripped copper pipes out of the walls. The second floor looked OK, he said.
Kalish estimated it would cost roughly $2 million to retrofit the interior.
Despite the building's deficiencies, Kalish had an interest in bidding on the hotel and is keeping the property in mind if it comes up for sale after foreclosure proceedings are complete.
That's because the developer owns an 8-acre lot right next door to the Cortina. Kalish received a local zoning permit to build a hotel on the site almost a decade ago.
The auction ended with GECMC Mendon Lodging, a community mortgage-backed security holding the hotel's mortgage, entering the sole bid to retain the property.
A lawyer representing GECMC said the owners may attempt to sell the hotel on the open market once the foreclosure is complete.
The hotel's future is of interest to a number of people, including its nearest competitor who said Friday that the Cortina's closing has been bad for business.
Brian Metvier, who owns Mendon Mountainview Lodge right across Route 4 from the Cortina, said the Cortina's customers were regular diners at his restaurant and overbooking at the Cortina, once a destination resort, oftentimes led to business for his establishment.
Robert Harnish, who owned the Cortina for 33 years before selling it in 2002, said he was also interested in seeing the hotel return — perhaps even under his ownership again.
"Never say never," Harnish said before bidding began.
Harnish and his wife owned the inn during a prior outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in 1985. But under their stewardship, the bacteria, which naturally occurs in groundwater, was eliminated from the water system.
Whether the hotel could reopen and overcome the stigma of the potentially fatal disease — a stigma that several people including former general manager Ted Bridges said would require a name change for the hotel — remains to be seen. Speculation among several bidders was that the best use for the property would be to raze the aging building.
Harnish said he hoped the hotel could avoid the wrecking ball. But his wife, Rita Harnish, said she just hoped to stay away from the issue altogether.
"I think he would have to drag me kicking and screaming," she said.
brent.curtis@rutlandherald.com
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