By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson City Manager Jeff Cantrell said that the Atrium Hotel demolition will likely cost more than the city hoped.
"Last week, we got the last piece and that is for asbestos review," Cantrell said. "We have found that the popcorn ceilings in, what I think is the entirety of the hotel is at threshold limits that are high enough that it will have to be abated. We're looking into pricing on that and trying to figure out what that process looks like and how quick we would have to abate that."
It's important for the city to have a better estimate of what it is getting into before they officially close on the property.
"There's companies that specialize in that kind of work, of course," Cantrell said. "I don't have any concern that we'll be able to get the work accomplished. We just want to make sure that we understand the maximum extent of work that will have to be done, so that we don't close on the property and then find out that a $200,000 abatement process might be double or triple. We'd like to have a pretty good hand on that before we complete the final docs."
The goal of the project remains to be able to demolish the existing rooms but keep the convention space in an effort to make it cost-effective for a developer to buy and build a new hotel on the property.