Developer announces timeline for Hotel Grim

Sari says building should be move-in ready by 2020

The Hotel Grim is one of three downtown buildings developer Jim Sari plans to renovate. The overall project cost is estimated at $20 million.
The Hotel Grim is one of three downtown buildings developer Jim Sari plans to renovate. The overall project cost is estimated at $20 million.

The developer who plans to renovate the Hotel Grim has indicated that construction on the project could begin by November.

In a social media post Sunday, developer Jim Sari laid out a new timeline for the Grim project's final steps, beginning with Texarkana, Texas, City Council action July 9 and ending with residents moving into the building by early 2020.

"Grim update:

"Council mtg on July 9 for final loan approvals

"Final state tax credit application end of July

"Closing November

"Construction start Nov/ Dec 18

"Construction completion Dec 19

"Occupancy first of 2020.

"Thank you for your patience - almost home," the post, on a Facebook page called "Remember in Texarkana," stated. Sari declined to be interviewed for further clarification, but responded to some comments on the Facebook post.

"All good folks.. the start date is really the driver. We need to finish before the end of 2019 to deliver the tax credit benefits. It will be a tight schedule but one I've met dozens of times if not more. Very appreciative of all the support out there. It means alot," he wrote in response to some who questioned whether the timeline is too ambitious.

The city Planning and Development Department confirmed that the City Council will be taking up Grim-related business at its next meeting, scheduled for July 9, but provided no details.

The department "will be working with the Hotel Grim development team next week on resolutions for the July 9th Council meeting," Director David Orr said in an email. "We should have more information that we can pass along then."

Sari said the plans are to convert the derelict downtown hotel into about 100 apartment units with retail and/or office space on the ground floor. A patchwork of financing mechanisms to fund the project is in place, including tax credits for making the apartments affordable to low-income residents.

Named after Texarkana banking, railroad and timber magnate William Rhoads Grim, the hotel opened in 1925, according to an account local historian Beverly Rowe wrote for the Gazette in 2006. Construction cost was nearly $1 million, and the 250-room hotel was luxuriously appointed in marble and other elegant decor.

The hotel served the many train passengers who in the course of their travels spent a night or longer in Texarkana. Over the years, many Texarkanians visited the Grim's ballroom and rooftop garden-popular venues for special events-as well as the beauty parlor, barber shop, coffee shop and bookstore that did business there.

A restaurant called Sue and Carol's Kitchen was the most recent resident of the hotel. The restaurant closed in 1990. Since then, only homeless squatters and a group of feral cats have occupied the crumbling building, now widely considered an eyesore.

On Twitter: @RealKarlRichter

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