Hotel Marysville owners must demolish fire-damaged landmark, appeals hearing panel rules

A panel of building experts has ruled that the owners of Hotel Marysville must pay to demolish the five-story Marysville landmark after a months-long stalemate between city officials and hotel ownership following a fire that destroyed the building in June.

The decision was issued Thursday by the panel of three hearing examiners tasked with determining an appeal made by the building’s owners, the Feather River Plaza LLC.

Marysville city officials convened the panel of three building experts at an early September hearing where they received arguments from the city and hotel owners, covering questions of the building’s safety risk to the downtown community and what to do with it .

Hotel owners have 10 days from the time of the ruling to prove they’ve hired someone to demolish the building and 60 days to actually tear it down. If not, the city can demolish the building itself and put its demolition cost as a lien against the property, according to the panel’s decision.

Hotel owners can file an administrative appeal within 20 days.

“Pleased, not surprised,” said Jim Schaad, Marysville city manager, of the panel’s decision. “I think the building speaks for itself and I think the panel’s decision speaks for itself. As far as the decision to, or the order to, tear the building down and demolish the building that the panel gave ... I’m not confident that the owner is going to come in and do that, that’s not been my experience with the owner thus far.”

Although the city would have the ability to knock down the building if its owners don’t comply with the panel’s decision, the city has not yet decided if it would.

“We have no obligation to demolish the building but we have the right to if we choose to do so,” Schaad added.

In the time since the building caught fire June 15, city officials and lawyers for Feather River Plaza LLC, which owns the hotel property and what’s left of the building, have fought over what to do with the shell of what was once an iconic Marysville landmark .

The hearing that preceded the decision Thursday stemmed from hotel ownership’s appeal of a violation issued by the city on Aug. 1, telling owners to demolish what remained of the hotel.

The panel found that the hotel’s condition made it a public nuisance, as defined by city code, and presented imminent threat to the public and a danger to nearby properties.

Past violation notices the city served to hotel owners dating back to July 2022 claimed a number of concerns related to the building’s abandoned state and “blighted condition that is a detriment to the property values in the neighborhood/local businesses …,” according to the decision.

Owners haven’t addressed those concerns, the panel found, and have “not acted in good faith” by not addressing the city notices.

Engineers hired by the city found that the building had not been maintained prior to the fire, and after the fire, the walls of the top story were at risk of crumbling onto the sidewalk and street below, a main thoroughfare through Marysville . Hotel owners hired engineers who found that the hotel was salvageable, but the panel of experts ruled that hotel owners had not made a meaningful effort to move forward with renovations.

Health concerns related to asbestos in the building arose after the fire, with worries that rain would wash asbestos out of the building and into the city’s storm drain system.

The panel disagreed with the owner’s claims that Hotel Marysville qualified as a historic building as defined by state code, which could protect it from demolition.

Marysville Fire Department began an arson investigation after the fire but a cause has not been determined. The panel found that regardless of the cause of the fire, the building was a threat to the public and nearby properties.

“There is a significant likelihood based on the evidence present as to the condition of the building that the cause of the Fire may never be known,” the decision states.

Attorneys for Feather River Plaza were not immediately available for comment.

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