Listing the Landmark
The Landmark Hotel in Hutchinson, Kan., which was converted into a low-income apartment complex, has fallen into severe disrepair, and its ailing owner, Realtor Terry Messing, is trying to sell it. He listed the 90-year-old building for sale on eBay for $130,000, and he has advertised it on several other social media outlets as well. The appraised value of the property is $201,770.
The hardwood floors underneath the carpet need to be replaced.
One of the Landmark’s bathrooms needs extensive repairs.
Realtor Josie Thompson walks through a hallway at the Landmark Hotel
Realtor Josie Thompson of J.P. Weigand & Sons Inc. stands in one of the units in the Landmark Hotel.
Co-listers Josie Thompson, left, and Maribeth Reimer examine a large hole in the ceiling of one of the units that was caused by a six-inch rain last year.
HUTCHINSON, Kan. – When Menzo Hainline bought Hutchinson’s Stamey Hotel in the spring of 1958 with plans to convert it into apartments, he told a reporter with The Hutchinson News he was renaming it the Landmark Hotel because “there’s usually a landmark in every town, and this building is just that.”
He left “hotel” in the name, Hainline explained, because he was considering leaving part of the building as a hotel. Within a few years, however, the conversion to apartments was complete.
The five-story brick and limestone building remains a structural landmark, denoting downtown Hutchinson’s north end with its Renaissance Revival-style architecture.
But it hasn’t played host to the guests of its hotel heyday – reportedly, Howard Hughes in 1930, Rin Tin Tin III in 1949 and movie producer Saul Wurtzel, who made it his headquarters while filming “Wait ‘Til the Sun Shines, Nellie” in 1951 – for many, many years.
Instead, the building owned by Hutchinson Realtor Terry Messing houses low-income residents, and its interior has significantly deteriorated over the years.
Messing, in declining health, has listed the 90-year-old building for sale on eBay for $130,000. The listing has since been removed, but at one point it had garnered two bids from the same bidder. Messing said he’s also tried Craigslist and Facebook to list the building’s sale. The appraised value of the property is currently $201,770.
“We’ve had some questions, a lot of questions,” Messing said. “But when we tell them how bad it is, it scares them off.”
He’s had it on the market about six months, Messing said, but noted, “I should have been trying to sell it five years ago.”
He had no estimate on what the building would cost to simply repair.
“I’d just like to sell it and have someone else worry about it,” Messing said.
Real estate agent Josie Thompson of J.P. Weigand & Sons Inc., one of those locally listing the property for Messing and taking interested parties on tours, said the best option is to sell the building for the price of the shell.
“The exterior is the best part, the most salvageable,” Thompson said.
While some interior historic elements also should be preserved, Thompson opined, such as ceiling beams and terrazzo tile floors on the ground floor, original railings up the five flights of stairs and some wooden ones upstairs, the most likely scenario is that the building be gutted and rebuilt with fewer apartments.
The plans for redevelopment will determine whether residents are displaced, Messing said.
The building, currently with 41 apartments, is about 65 percent occupied, Thompson said. About 80 percent of the apartments are habitable, but the rest have ceiling or wall damage that prevents their use.
On the top floor, the leaking roof, following last year’s six-inch rain, collapsed several areas of ceiling, which then ran down into apartments below, also making them uninhabitable, Messing said.
Insurance won’t cover the damage, Messing said, and he can’t afford to make the repairs. Rents currently range from $220 to $600 a month, with most in the $300 to $400 range.
Some rooms also have “plumbing issues,” Thompson said.
The street corner originally housed the Zion Lutheran Church. The building was demolished in 1921 to make way for the hotel, according to a September 1922 news story.
The property has had several remodels over the years, including repairs after a 1974 fire in a third-floor storage room, a $25,000 project when Messing first purchased it in 1978 and a $1.04 million project in 1990 split between the Landmark and Leon apartments funded, in part, by a $300,000 Community Development Block Grant, according to news accounts.
The best hope for the property, both Messing and Thompson said, is if a developer can qualify for historic tax credits or low-income housing tax credits, or a combination of the two, to help fund redevelopment.
Different developers have proposed using such tax credits to remodel the property twice in the last couple of years – including a $4.5 million proposal by Manske and Associates – but it didn’t make the cut for the limited credits either round.
“It could be a great return on investment if it could be developed into urban lofts of 2,000 to 4,000 square feet each,” Thompson said. “In the summer, when things are green, it’s a great view.”