Hutch withdraws offer as its 'Ambassador-style' problem drags out

NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post

HUTCHINSON — The Hutchinson City Council moved on Tuesday to rescind the offer they had made for the Atrium Hotel to Joshua Joseph, who closed the hotel in 2019.

"I feel strongly that any investment made into that property made sense two years ago," said Mayor Jade Piros de Carvalho. "We were trying to save a convention center worth $4 million. But, I don't think in good conscience, we can rightfully invest $1.6 million in a structure that is then going to require another half-million dollars in asbestos mitigation and then going to require another half-million to a million to demo it. The owner has been non-responsive to Jeff. Today is the deadline that we gave the owner."

The motion passed unanimously.

Joseph was the former owner of the Ambassador hotel in Hays, which was razed in 2017 after years of falling into disrepair. 

"I agree completely with what you said," said City Manager Jeff Cantrell. "We now have a non-responsive seller and that tells me everything. Additional attempts were made in the past two weeks, to no avail. These were prior methods of communication that were clearly our method of communication. Multiple means of communication were attempted."

Joseph owned the Ambassador Hotel property in Hays before that city finished the tearing down of that property through its nuisance abatement process in 2017.