This Blows!

Here's a little history for you: Houston's Heaven on Earth Inn closed on Labor Day weekend 1994, along with its counterparts in Tulsa and Detroit. The plan, the Houston Chronicle reported, was to convert it into the Maharishi Vedic School. In 1998, city fire inspectors ordered the building closed after numerous health and fire code violations were never addressed.

As it turns out, the Maharishi people can reduce war in Lebanon, but there were two forces they could not overcome: Chicago building inspectors and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In November 2000, the city ordered the hotel closed after discovering asbestos exposure and a troubled electrical system, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. And then OSHA fined Heaven on Earth Inns, Inc. $157,350 for "allegedly exposing workers to asbestos." They sold the hotel a few years later.

In 2004, after the Maharishi folks had sat on a dilapidated Avon Lake, Ohio country club for years, that city's mayor tried to get the property declared a blight so it could be seized under eminent domain. But the Maharishi folks finally sold the property to a developer who razed the sucker.

And the mayor in Hartford, Connecticut, is getting a bit fed up with the yogis. See, they've been sitting on a vacant hotel for 12 years, in an area that's becoming a hub for corporate development.

Mayor Eddie Perez told the Hartford Courant he would probably "propose a redevelopment zone encompassing the two buildings," which would "give the city the option of acquiring the hotel by eminent domain."

What's that? How can their mayor talk about seizing the property if there aren't any outstanding violations? Good question. After all, it's private property, right? Well, I guess that mayor's a bit different than ours. As a matter of fact, I called the Hartford mayor's office, and they put me in touch with John Palmieri, director of the Department of Development Services. He's also the executive director of the Hartford Redevelopment Agency.

"We're concerned because the Maharishi has done very little to show us that he's interested in actively trying to sell it or develop it himself," Palmieri told me. "Typically...states empower redevelopment agencies or development authorities with certain powers that would permit a city or the agency...to take a property through eminent domain, through condemnation. A property that might be current in its taxes, a property that may be sound and secure but nevertheless a blight."

Palmieri wanted to make it clear that the city's not a land-hungry bully, and that the most important thing is to try to reach an agreement with the owner.

"It's the action of last resort," he said. "But if nothing else works...it's a legitimate means to an important public end."

The Cenikor Building on Texas Avenue, the King George Hotel on Preston Avenue and the Savoy Hotel on Main Street also are being considered as future single-room occupancy sites in the downtown area. Come back in 15 years, [Mayor Bob] Lanier suggested, and Houston will be a national leader in helping homeless residents keep from living on street corners and get their lives back on track.

--Houston Chronicle, 1995

So, what do you folks say? Are these not the sweetest pieces of property you've seen in some time? What's that? You're going to sleep on it? Oh, okay. But you better not sleep too long. But I have a saying: "You snooze, you lose the opportunity to talk to a levitating transcendental meditator about buying an old Holiday Inn with eight-foot ceilings for $10 million."

Before I forget, I had one last thing to talk about, vis-á-vis the Central Square building. See, our friend Sean squatted there for a while, too, after he grew restless at the Savoy. And I think his experience there might make you a lot more interested in writing that $12 million check. Sean and some of his homeless buds were walking down the street and, well, I'll let him take it from here:

"Again, we're just walking by the building, looking up, [and] 'Oh my gosh, it's another [tall] building, completely empty.' That place was incredibly easy to get into...After the first few nights of sleeping there, I was hearing noises at night, and thinking it was raccoons or something. And I went upstairs and scared the shit out of two guys that were ripping out the plumbing and copper and whatnot."

Sean said they turned out to be pretty good guys. And he got a kick out of exploring the place. Up in the remains of the old Cork Club, he found some sweet black leather couches and a few massage tables.