Timeline set for restoration of Ukiah’s derelict Palace Hotel

Fed up with years of broken promises and stalled repairs, the Ukiah City Council on Wednesday night set a strict schedule for rehabilitation work on the historic Palace Hotel. If the schedule is not followed, city staff is now authorized to seek a court order for a receiver to oversee work on the decaying hotel in the center of the city’s historic downtown.

“These are deadlines we aren’t wriggling around this time,” Councilman Kevin Doble said following the unanimous vote. The first deadline is in 90 days.

The council first threatened Palace Hotel owner Eladia Laines with receivership three years ago. It declared the hotel a nuisance and a safety hazard and created a work schedule. But the schedule was not followed, in some cases for reasons beyond Laines’ control.

Under the new schedule, she must demonstrate good cause for any delays to city staff. If not, the city’s public works director, rather than the council, has the authority to start the receivership process and ask the courts to appoint someone to manage the hotel’s rehabilitation.

The money spent on the hotel by a receiver is expected to be recovered from the property or the owner after the work is completed. If it’s not feasible to fix the decrepit structure, it potentially could be demolished.

To avoid receivership proceedings in the coming 90 days, Laines must complete asbestos removal; repair the fire sprinkler system; waterproof the leaking roof; assess and address structural issues; and secure the building against trespassers.

If she completes the projects on schedule, a new series of deadlines will kick in.

Laines, a Marin County real estate agent, has been promising to restore the landmark hotel since she and former partners purchased it in a 1990 bankruptcy sale for $115,000.

Laines said she’s spent more than $1 million on the project ?so far but that the three-?story building is huge - 60,000 square feet - and the work is daunting. Money dried up in the recession, making it difficult to further fund the project, she said. The contractor overseeing the work has said Laines owes him well over $200,000.

But the council and her former supporters apparently have lost sympathy with Laines, who has made many promises over the past 25 years.

“She may think she means well, but the proof is in the pudding,” said Tom Liden, a onetime supporter and member of a committee created to assist Laines in rehabilitating the hotel.

“It’s past time,” said Alan Nicholson, another of her disappointed former supporters.

You can reach Staff Writer Glenda Anderson at 462-6473 or glenda.anderson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MendoReporter.