Hi Everyone,
We had good news today. We got confirmation that the insurance company was releasing a substantial partial payment which we will receive this week. So we gave Jeffords Steel the go ahead to fabricate the steel. The fabrication date is May 11, 2009. The delivery date is May 18, 2009. We hope to be applying for a permit to erect the steel early next week, i.e. the week of April 27. Before the steel is delivered we hope to excavate and pour the footings so we are ready to erect the steel when it is delivered. A subcontractor will erect the steel and he estimates a little over two weeks to complete the job. That would give us a steel framed building by the end of the first week in June. We would then have to infill steel studs between the steel columns.
We are formulating plans now to decide how to build as quickly as possible. Our current brainstormed plan would be to run two separate crews on 4 10 hour days with the overlapping of crews staggered on different days (so both crew are not there on the overlapping day). We will also try to have a large enough crew to work on all areas at once.
This is an estimated timetable based on getting permits from the Town. By the end of next week we will know whether this plan will be confirmed. If it is, we will try to line up construction crews so we can give an estimated time of opening the different components. Terry

Comfort Inn complex-First Update

Hi Everyone, I want to start off by apologizing that we have not started this blog as a method of communicating with you sooner. It is very difficult for me to believe we the fire occurred on November 15^th last year and we are now at April 5^th and we have not started construction. What follows is a summary of what has happened so far.

1. CAUSE AND ORIGIN PHASE

Determination of cause and point of origin of the fire-the first two weeks after the fire, the New York State Fire cause and origin officials studied the site to determine what caused the fire. What we have heard so far is that it was caused by New York State Electric and Gas Corporations (NYSEG) loss of one phase of its three phase power supply in our district. It caused a surge which overheated a wire and started the fire in the pool area. During the first week, we hired a public adjusting firm (NFA) to assess the value of the loss and negotiate the settlement. We also immediately started the research and planning to rebuild a better Comfort Inn Complex. I retained McKenna Associates architectural firm who I have worked with for years.

2. INTERESTED PARTY INVESTIAGTION PHASE

The next phase involved our insurance company notifying NYSEG and an Electrical Contractor of their potential liability for the fire and that they would be seeking reimbursement from them for the money they will have to pay us on this claim. They had to give them time to investigate this site for the cause and origin and to evaluate the amount of the loss. Our adjusters, NFA, also began their evaluation of the amount of the loss. This involved literally listing and counting every piece of personal property on the site including items that were not damaged. They had to asses every aspect of building damage. It was not until January 12^th that we got permission from the Insurance Company to take back control of the building and demolish the unusable portions.

3. DEMOLITION PHASE

The demolition phase required permits from the Town of Plattsburgh, the New York State Department of Labor and the Federal Environmental Protection Agency. This project took us several weeks. During this time, NFA was still working on there assessment of the total loss for building and personal property. The insurance company’s people were doing the same evaluation of building and personal property loss.

4. CONCLUSION OF NFA ASSESSMENT PHASE

NFA concluded their assessment of building loss on January 26^th, 2009 and personal property on March 9^th, 2009. This information was voluminous. The insurance company has been reviewing this information and had a meeting with NFA and us on March 26^th at our temporary offices in Plattsburgh. We are supposed to have another meeting on April 27^th at which time we are supposed to have a settlement offer.

5. INSURANCE SETTLEMENT

Without the insurance company settlement, we are not able to proceed with construction. It will be a multi million dollar reconstruction project and our bank that holds the mortgage on the property will receive the money from the insurance company and disburse it to us. From their prospective, they need to control the money to protect their interest.

6. PERSONAL NOTE

I want all of you to know that I highly appreciate people who have the “INTERNAL PRIDE” in themselves that causes them to “CARE ABOUT DOING A GREAT JOB”. We want you back in the worst way. I will tell you that I had the “debate” that raged in my head whether to rebuild or not. At my age I could have taken the insurance money, sold what was left. The restaurant site would have been easy to sell. I could literally retire and not work anymore. I have chosen not to do that in large part because I feel an obligation to you and the community to restore this property and the jobs it created. I have to tell you it is a scary thing especially in light of the economic environment we will be opening in. However, I look forward to working again with all of you who really "CARE ABOUT DOING A GREAT JOB".

7. BUILDING PERMIT

I will not go into detail but we have struggled getting a building permit to start this construction. We hope to have the permit within the next two weeks. This will enable us to project a rough date for completion of the different phases of the construction. We will be opening Perkins/Legends/ Ballroom area before the hotel opens and the health club will be last. This is all because of the different amounts of construction to open each business. I will try to post an update twice a month-beginning and middle of the month. Thanks, Terry