Dozens displaced from condemned Edmond hotel
By: Kathryn McNutt//The Journal Record//March 30, 2022
EDMOND – Dozens of residents of the OYO Hotel have been displaced in the last two months after the Edmond City Council condemned the building as “uninhabitable, unsafe and unsanitary.”
The building, described as the victim of years of neglect, is considered a fire trap. Edmond Fire Marshal Mike Fitzgerald said he feared for the lives of residents and firefighters if a fire broke out.
“They can’t continue to operate that facility in its present condition,” City Attorney Stephen Murdock said Wednesday.
The elevator, fire doors and fire alarm system in the three-story building are not working despite repeated citations and promises to make repairs since 2014, officials said.
“You just can’t risk the lives,” Councilman David Chapman said Wednesday. “It never was very full. … Hopefully they will sell it to someone who could make it an attractive affordable housing project.”
About 40 people were living there two weeks ago and that number had dropped to nine by Monday, Murdock said. He expects everyone will be out in two weeks.
Where will they go? That question was raised by council members and others during the council’s Jan. 24 meeting.
“We have a lack of affordable housing in Edmond and it’s a desperate need,” said Paula Parkhurst, who told the council she serves meals to “down and out” residents at the OYO Hotel.
Parkhurst agreed the building has multiple problems that need to be fixed, “but to close down the facility will leave people on the street. We don’t have any other place to put people.”
Murdock said he referred a few residents to the Hope Center of Edmond for assistance.
The former apartment complex at 1300 E. Ayers St. was redeveloped as the hotel in 2019, but code enforcement and law enforcement issues began five years before that, Murdock said.
Police Capt. Acey Hopper said problems have increased over the past year with more serious crimes involving drugs, weapons and prostitution. “It is crime-infested,” Hopper told the council.
Council members voted unanimously to declare the property a nuisance Jan. 24 but agreed to allow some time for people living in the building to relocate.
Safe affordable housing is the plan, said Danny Franks, a contractor who has been working on the building for about a month.
“We’re known to take problem properties and clean them up and make them right,” Franks said Wednesday. “The person who has been managing the property no longer is.”
The ownership group – Edmond Medical Complex LLC – is represented by attorney Todd McKinnis, who said Dr. Rajesh Narula is now in charge of the property.
Franks said Narula hired Blackhawk Security, owned by his wife, Sara Franks, to provide security for the building and then hired him to bring it up to code.
The plan is to return the property to affordable apartments – some furnished and some unfurnished – for people who want to turn their lives around. No more drugs or disturbances, he said.
Current residents who would like to return after the renovation said they could afford $700 to $800 a month, Franks said.
Improvements will take time, but he plans to start by getting the first floor up and running as soon as possible. The elevator repair will cost $230,000 and it will take six months to get the parts, he said.
“It has 90 rooms that would provide much-needed housing that’s not otherwise available in our community – if it were safe,” McKinnis said.
Dozens displaced from condemned Edmond hotel | The Journal Record