Appeal overturns receivership of Days Inn; owner's lawyer says sale is imminent

An appeals court has overturned the appointment of a receiver to take control of the old Days Inn hotel property in Elyria and oversee its abatement. On the heels of the decision, an attorney for the owner of the property, Suite Living LLC, said a sale that would lead to the building's redevelopment is imminent. On Monday, the Ohio 9th District Court of Appeals issued a ruling that Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Giovanna Bremke had erred in her decision last April when she appointed attorney Christopher Mulvaney as the receiver of the dilapidated former hotel on Travelers Lane. This decision was pursuant to a stipulated judgment agreement wherein Suite Living agreed that the building was a nuisance that needed to be abated, and agreed that Mulvaney would be appointed receiver to oversee that abatement if the company failed to meet certain deadlines. In its ruling, the 9th District Court of Appeals said that the agreement would remain in place, but Mulvaney would be removed as receiver because he had not presented Bremke with a financial and construction plan for the remediation of the nuisance property, something he was required to do under state law. The ruling sent the case of the building's future back to Lorain County Common Pleas Court. Elyria Law Director Amanda Deery said that while the city had failed to have the appeal dismissed, she was happy the appeal had been decided since it had frozen the process of the remediation. "In effect, the property is still considered a nuisance, the property ownership is still responsible for abating that nuisance and the city is still looking to hold the ownership responsible for that abatement," Deery said. The city could make another motion seeking to have Mulvaney appointed as the receiver, if he first provides Bremke with a plan. Attorney Logan Trombley of the Mendenhall Law Group, representing Suite Living, agreed that the building is a nuisance but said that the city's efforts to take control of the property were only delaying the remediation. Trombley said that he has a California-based buyer who plans to purchase the property, gut the hotel and reopen it as an assisted-living facility. "We want to abate the nuisance, we want to do what the city wants," Trombley said. "We just wish the city would stop playing these games and let us do it. The city really has two choices. They could come into an agreement with us and, you know, just let us cook, right? Let us do our thing here, we want the same thing. Or, they are going to come back and they are going to have Mr. Mulvaney file it again and say 'Our financial and construction plan is to demolish this property with the (Lorain County) Port Authority.'" In December, Mulvaney signed a deal to sell the Days Inn to the Lorain County Port Authority, but it was contingent on the outcome of the appeals case and other litigation the property is tied up in. Trombley said that if the receiver sold the property to the Port Authority for $0, as he suspected it would have, it would have been "unconstitutional taking" and he would have appealed that move as a violation of his client's constitutional rights. Port Authority Director Jim Miller said Tuesday that the organization had no interest in purchasing the property if it could not become the clear holder of the title. With the matter of whether Mulvaney had any right to sell to the Port Authority now in question, the sale was now "on hold," pending the final results of litigation. Trombley said that the city and Mulvaney were not acting in good faith during the process in part because he had not been informed of the agreement to sell to the Port Authority. "Act in good faith and we will get the job done for both of us, but stop playing these games, this is what is going to keep happening," Trombley said. While some city officials, like Mayor Kevin Brubaker, said they were happy about the proposed sale to the Port Authority, Deery said that the sale was done by Mulvaney with no involvement from the city. "The city was not negotiating that at all," she said. "Other than that, I would not even dignify that with a response… (Suite Living) has owned this property for years, and has had plenty of opportunities to sell it without the OK of a court." Trombley is also representing Suite Living in two federal lawsuits relating to property. One accuses the city of causing damage to the property by keeping a stop order in place after Suite Living purchased it, which Trombley said led to the dilapidation that made the property a nuisance. The other is in regard to the "unconstitutional taking" which Trombley alleged stemmed from the proposed sale to the Port Authority. Suite Living is also seeking to have the building placed on the National Register of Historic Places, something Trombley said would provide the proposed developer with tax credits. Trombley said that the proposed buyer was aware of the poor condition of the building but had the funding and expertise to work quickly to abate the issues and start redevelopment. "This is their bread and butter," Trombley said. "They take properties like this, they get a construction loan — they've done it a million times — and they turn it into a nice property, and they're willing to act fast. They're willing to secure the property, and we're willing to start construction and do all the things to mitigate the public nuisance, and it will happen faster than if the city tries to continue this path with the Port Authority." Trombley said that he would reach back out to the city in hopes of working out an agreement to start on that process. He said the sale could be finalized "within a week." Deery said that there had been false starts with potential buyers in the past, and the city just wanted a guarantee the nuisance would be abated. "We just want this remedied in a way that is going to be an adequate solution, and then this property is not going to be a blight anymore," she said. "We think that the residents more than deserve that." Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.