Sunday, August 2, 2009

Patrick Henry Hotel on Auction Block Wednesday

The 10-story Patrick Henry was part of the "Golden Age of Municipal Progress" in Roanoke^

The Patrick Henry Hotel in Roanoke, a 90-year-old, 125-room facility that has been vacant for several years, goes on the auction block Wednesday morning at 9:30 at the Roanoke City courthouse.

The building is assessed at $3.7 million, but like Agnew Feed and Seed, an historic Roanoke City Market building auctioned off this past spring, it is not expected to bring that much. The purchaser would be required to pay either 10 percent of the price or $275,000 down and close the deal within 30 days, according to reports.

The Patrick Henry is owned by Affirmative Equities of New York. It is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, filed a little over half a year ago. The lender, Potomac Realty Capital of Delaware, is moving toward foreclosure.

The 10-story Colonial Revival Patrick Henry, opened in 1925, was designed by New York architect William Lee Stoddart and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The building was “the paramount manifestation of local urban transformation spurred by local civic leader, businessman and former Mayor William Wise Boxley. Boxley rode the wave of Post WWI nationalism and isolationism to engineer an urban renewal that is now referred to as Roanoke’s ‘Golden Age of Municipal Progress,’” according to the National Register.

The Boxley Building across the street from the Patrick Henry, is part of that “Golden Age.” It is undergoing renovation and will, itself, shake off years as an office building and become a hotel and condominium facility.

There had been plans nearly 20 years ago to convert the Patrick Henry into senior housing and it was sold for $3 million with that in mind, but a conversion price of nearly $30 million proved daunting and it never happened.

-- DAN SMITH

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