Emergency demolition ordered for abandoned hotel

An abandoned hotel caught fire in Kansas City, Missouri, causing an emergency demolition order, a report by KMBC News says. The Ramada Inn caught fire in the early morning of Dec. 20.

Kansas City firefighters extinguished the fire in the atrium of the building before the entire building burned, the report says. John Baccala, Kansas City’s Neighborhoods and Housing Services Department spokesperson, says in the report that an emergency demolition will start on the first floor of the building as early as Dec. 21.

Baccala says in the report the city will complete abatement before bidding out the rest of the building’s demolition in early 2018.

Copper has been stripped from the hotel, the windows are broken and bed are thrown around the building. The report says the department has attempted to contact the hotel owners, PPH Realty LLC, New York City, multiple times to tear down the property but has not yet made contact.

The cost of demolition and abatement is unclear, but the report says it could cost several hundred thousand dollars.