The Charles Hotel Public Comment from Karlene KhorAimee Brunckhorst
From: K Khor <kkhor838@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 1:34 AM
To: Kalispell Meetings Public Comment
Subject: EXTERNAL The Charles Hotel
Follow Up Flag: Follow up
Flag Status: Flagged
The construction of the Charles Hotel over, some have stated, atleast "a two year period" most certainly will adversely
affect current businesses and the buildings which house them.
The last time construction of this magnitude occurred in our downtown area; businesses went out of business as folks
did not want to travel the road or visit their business during construction ( First Avenue East in the 1990s and Main
Street in the 1960s).
If the recent DIL article is correct, the hotel and parking building cost for the developer is 47 million dollars. Yet, the
parking building cost will be reimbursed to the developer by the taxes the city has imposed upon the building owners in
the business district and there is no charge to the developer for the hotel site valued at $270k.
Nowhere in these agreements is any assurances to the present building owners or business by the city to hold the
developers to a construction standard to prevent damage to their adjacent historic buildings or mitigate the financial
losses or closure of their businesses by this construction.
Nowhere in these agreements is there a hard timeline for completion of these projects (hotel and parking building). Is it
two years? Four years? How long will Main Street and the downtown be a construction site?
The city is responsible to current business owners and building owners; nowhere in any of these agreements is there any
indication of such. No building owner would be worried about their businesses surviving this construction period nor
their building suffering damage if the city would provide some measure of protection for them in these agreements.
This hand over of city property and use of TIF funds and these draft agreements as currently written relegates the City
responsibility to these taxpayers to a developer. The city is actually terminating its responsibility to these taxpayers.
At the last council meeting I attended on the subject, the developer did not know how he was constructing the
foundation of the hotel. I had asked on this particular subject because of the vibrations and varied impact on
neighboring buildings certain foundation construction technology can produce.
It's quite a bet in these inflationary economic pandemic times with a city in need of so many other projects to start one
like this which will in its development and construction, as outlined in these agreements, for sure harm the
neighborhood; create financial losses to current businesses and possible catastrophic damage to historic buildings.
In these agreements, the city has abdicated its responsibility to the downtown owners, businesses and their customers.
If the greater city community, not just a select few, had been asked their building priority for our city's needs; I would be
quite surprised if a hotel would be at the top of their list.
Since it will be impossible to get this council to stop this project; my hope is you will pause and consider your
responsibilities to the downtown building owners and businesses by providing some measures within these agreements
to protect their investments in their building and businesses and mitigate the impact of construction upon them.
Karlene Khor Manager La Lark Llc
(La Lark Llc is an owner of downtown property)
Sent from my iPhone