Hotel Miramar at 1950 Fort Worth Ave., Nov. 11, 2021. Photo by Rachel Stone.
Plans for the Hotel Miramar to become a supportive housing facility still remain shaky, even after three years of city discussions.
In a Monday morning Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee meeting, council members expressed their frustration over the project’s continued delays during a briefing from the Office of Homeless Solutions.
The property at 1950 Fort Worth Ave. was originally purchased by the city for $3.5 million in 2020 using federal COVID money.
In the briefing, city staff outlined the project’s projected timeline, which is expected to conclude in September 2024 “with immediate activity on site.” The cost will be nearly $6 million, with just over $2.3 million in funds coming from the 2017 bond earmark, and over $3.6 million being funded through ARPA.
“This is the source we are committed to using but we are also looking to offset that so the bond money can be freed up to be utilized in other projects,” said Christine Crossley, director of the Office of Homeless Solutions.
City Council member for District 1 Chad West asked city staff a barrage of questions, making his frustration clear. West cited project delays, cost and a lack of an operating partner as reasons for his “disappointment” in the project, and asked staff to develop a revised project plan to help address the “uncertainty that remains” for the building.
“I have been supportive from the very beginning. I want this to have a happy ending. I just don’t see a path forward with the way we’ve handled this project,” said West.
West also said city staff “should (have) known” about asbestos in the building. An asbestos remediation in the winter of 2021 cost $224,000, according to Crossley.
“Every commercial project that I’ve done in Bishop Arts, and there’s been like seven of them, I’ve had an idea that there’s been asbestos in them because they’re old,” West said.
City staff said they are currently in the process of negotiating fees with the selected architecture firm for the hotel, and they expect the design phase to be wrapped up by March 2024.
City council member for District 12, Cara Mendelsohn, asked for clarification that formerly unhoused people will move into the property as soon as the renovation is completed in September 2023.
“The timeline of this is just pretty outrageous,” Mendelsohn said. “Here we sit talking about over 4,000 people in our city homeless and the urgency of having housing, and we sat with a building for essentially three years vacant.”
During the briefing, city staff assured the council members that they “understand” the frustrations and difficulties the project has faced thus far, and are nonetheless ready to move ahead.
While the city has not identified a managing operator for the property, Crossley said the process of finding one, and finding the funding it will take to pay them, will happen “soon.”
