One of the older buildings in downtown Fayetteville should soon be under new management after the former owner reached a settlement in his bankruptcy case. The owner, who city officials said owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in municipal fines, agreed to transfer ownership of the Hotel Prince Charles to a new business. The settlement ends the bankruptcy case and averts the city putting the building for sale at a foreclosure auction.
In 2009, the Prince Charles’ owner put in a vinyl window on the seventh floor. The window was in violation of Fayetteville’s laws regarding historic properties such as the 87-year-old building. The owner refused to remove the window and the city began levying fines.
By April 2010, the city said the owner owed $181,000 in fines. City officials began moving toward forcing a public auction of the building to repay the fines, but the owner filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, putting a halt on the sale. In November, hoping to get the Prince Charles out of bankruptcy protection, the city sought to have the owner’s case changed to Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which would allow the judge to liquidate the owner’s assets to pay his debts, or dismissed outright.
Before that happened, the two sides reached an agreement that will transfer title in the hotel to a new company called King David LLC. The owner of King David has already begun cleaning out the hotel, which has sat unused since October 2010. He said will conduct a feasibility study to determine whether to renovate the building into business and residential condominiums.
Source: Fayetteville Observer, “Hotel Prince Charles under new management; plan calls for residential, office condos,” Andrew Barksdale, Dec. 6, 2012