Closed for two years, the vacant Imperial Inn might be resurrected as a rustic, mountain-style commercial space containing a restaurant, retail stores and offices.
West Main Holdings, a local family partnership, submitted an application to the city of Bozeman last week to remodel the 13,000-square-foot motel.
“Keeping it a hotel didn’t make sense financially, and none of us has experience in hospitality,” said Eric Sutherland, one of four partners in the company.
The inn was shuttered in fall 2009, days before a bank auctioned off the prominent property, at the southeast corner of Main Street and Grand Avenue, to a Florida-based finance company in a foreclosure sale.
Sutherland said the partnership plans to revitalize the rundown, two-story motel with a “modern, mountain-rustic” look and a new stone, metal and glass façade.
The motel’s lobby, which faces Main Street, would be remodeled to contain a small restaurant.
Directly behind the restaurant space, along the eastern side of the L-shaped building, motel rooms would be reworked into three or four loft-style retail spaces.
The rest of the building, which juts out to the west, would be turned into as many as four office spaces.
The parking lot in the center would be landscaped to contain picnic tables and 22 vehicle spaces.
Sutherland said the project is expected to cost $750,000 to $1 million.
He and his partners belong to the Parks family, the same family that last year remodeled the Gallatin Building, which houses the Co-op Downtown at 44 E. Main St.
The Parks bought the inn last summer and got a $7,200 technical assistance grant from the Downtown Bozeman Partnership to help them determine how to redevelop it.
The inn’s former owner, Thomas Mosser, who died last year, had at one time planned to demolish the building and build in its place a six-story hotel with underground parking. He got approval from the city and sought investors but wound up filing for bankruptcy.
Since the Parks bought the property, Sutherland said they’ve cleaned out the motel rooms. They hope to start replacing the roof before winter.
“Hopefully, by the end of next summer, we’ll have it up and running,” he said.
City Planner Allyson Bristor said the Parks family’s application will not go before the Bozeman City Commission for approval because it is for re-use of the existing building.
City Planning Director Tim McHarg will have final decision-making authority.
The application does not request any deviations or variations, though it does seek to demolish the joint where the building’s L-shape comes together, making the structure two separate buildings.
The inn’s property does not occupy the entire corner at Main Street and Grand Avenue. Part of the parking lot along Grand Avenue is under different ownership, Bristor said. No plans for that site have been submitted to the city.
City staff will also need to determine whether the inn is historic and has any special restrictions. The inn is nearly 50 years old, the national standard for when a building is eligible to be historic.
The Imperial “400” Motel was built in 1963, according to the partnership’s application. The architect and builder are unknown.
Before it was the site of a motel, the property contained a locksmith and welding shop, taxidermist, picture-framing establishment and lumber yard.
City officials gave Mosser preliminary approval to demolish the motel in 2007.
Bristor said it’s hard to say whether the partnership’s proposal could hit any snags.
“We haven’t even really had a chance to review it yet,” she said.
All best,
______________________
Jason Frey
Agent
PureWest, Inc.
jason.frey@purewestproperties.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonfreylifewideopen
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