NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Hutchinson City Council received an update on the situation at the Atrium Hotel during their meeting on Tuesday. Building Inspector Izzy Rivera was unavailable, but he gave information to City Manager Gary Meagher on the issues.
"This year, his department has contacted a contractor to board up different portions of the building," Meagher said. "In May, in July, in August, and I think last week, there was a request. These reports primarily have come from the police department."
Police said there have been a couple dozen calls out there over the past several months.
"Since the first of the year, we've had 26 calls for service to that property," said police chief Jeff Hooper. "The ones that are important for this context, specifically, we had ten times that we were requested to come out and check the building. We've taken one report out there for damage to property or vandalism, two open doors or open window calls, four suspicious activities and three times that we actually found people on the property. Typically, when we get a call, we come out there, we drive through the parking lot. Lots of times, if there was a person there, suspicious activity, just like lots of times in our job, they may be gone already. I do know that on six of these particular occasions, we found open doors or open windows that led us to believe that somebody may be squatting in there and we have to search that facility. That's a significant time and manpower draw on us. You know how big that building is. It takes multiple officers to search that, sometimes up to two or three hours, if we want to do a thorough search to make sure nobody's in there and then we call out code and Izzy's crew to come out and board that back up. We really can't board that back up with people in there."
The issue is that the current owner may not have done enough wrong yet to warrant drastic action by the council. The building is structurally sound and the bills on it are mostly paid.
"I'll visit with Mr. Rivera and the Chief and Mr. Brown and see if there's anything that could be done at this point," Meagher said. "Certainly, we can communicate to the owner concerns and see if he has plans on the building."
There has not been official communication from owner Joshua Joseph of Dallas recently on any actions he plans to take.