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Hartford Advocate, November 13, 2003
The Maharishi's Hotel
of Emptiness
By Chris Harris
Will the Beatles' former guru leave
Hartford with a permanent blemish, or is there hope for the Clarion Hotel?
To some, he's considered a spiritual guide.
To others, a cult leader. But to Hartford city officials, the Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi has been a supreme pain in the ass. In 1994, the 92-year-old
bearded populizer of transcendental meditation's enigmatic and faceless
Maharishi Vedic Development Corporation purchased the Clarion Hotel building
on Constitution Plaza, and there, in full view of the bustle of I-91, the
dilapidated edifice has sat -- a vacant, untouched, neglected eyesore,
and a billboard advertising Hartford's urban ruin.
Even now, as Hartford's trying to reverse
its tarnished image with tourists, via the mammoth Adriaen's Landing experiment,
the future of this piece of real estate is up in the air, as it has been
since the maharishi added it to his impressive reserve of American land
holdings.
What most folks don't
know about the maharishi is he's a big real estate investor. According
to the United Kingdom's Guardian newspaper, the maharishi's combined real-estate
and business holdings total out at $3.6 billion. These days, the maharishi
presides over a corporate empire Indian sources have estimated to be worth
more than $5 billion -- a sort of Wal-Mart of the spirit, encompassing
extensive land holdings in India, hotels in Europe, and publishing houses
in the United States.
So what are the maharishi's plans for the
asbestos-filled, mold-laden, water-damaged Clarion Hotel -- before that,
known as the Summit Hotel, and before that, the Sonesta, and even before
that, the regal American Hotel? Well, there's loads of speculation, but
nothing definitive.
At first, when the maharishi, who was guru
to the Beatles, paid $1.5 million for the vacated structure, the plan was
to restore the 290-room hotel to its magnificence, and reopen it as the
Constitution Plaza. There were even plans to utilize a portion of the building
as a vegetarian restaurant.
Then, there were plans to convert the hotel
into one of his Maharishi Vedic Universities, where students would be schooled
in the ways of transcendental meditation. But again, no action, and now,
in 2003, the hotel lies in wait -- its future, uncertain. But even back
in 1995, when representatives for the maharishi presented Hartford's City
Council with his intentions, it was a tough sell with former Mayor Mike
Peters.
"We weren't pleased about it," Peters told
the Advocate last week, about the maharishi's acquisition of the Clarion
Hotel. "We weren't sure what the plans would be for the hotel, what he
was going to do with it, which we knew then would be nothing, and we know
is nothing."
Of course, Peters was right to doubt. The
Clarion Hotel purchase was one phase in the maharishi's 40-year plan, according
to news accounts, to open meditation centers in all 50 states. It's unknown
just how many hotels the maharishi has procured over the years, but it's
been reported that the Clarion is one of at least 25 distressed American
hotels he owns -- 25 he has done nothing with.
Take the Berkeley Carteret in Asbury Park,
N.J., the historic Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, the Holiday Inn on Milwaukee's
west side, the Colony Hotel in downtown Dallas, and the former Days Inn
in Detroit -- all prime examples and all of them abandoned hotels owned
by the maharishi who, at one time, provided local officials with the promise
of redevelopment and more visitor dollars, but in time, left them with
yet another blighted piece of devalued real estate.
The Clarion Hotel closed in August of 1994,
at what might have been downtown Hartford's economic rock bottom. City
officials have hoped for years that the maharishi would sell the hotel
to someone who could find a new use for the building, but satisfaction
has yet to come. In 1998, things started looking up, as it seemed the maharishi
was close to selling the Clarion -- the hotel went back on the market that
spring, with a $14 million price tag, and yes, the real estate firm that
had listed the hotel claimed numerous, "very serious" offers were coming
in from around the world. But no deal.
Then, in 1999, more optimism came in the
form of a Michigan-based developer, David Ong, who'd expressed interest
in the edifice, and had plans to restore it to an operating, 270-room business
hotel. At the time, though, Ong was seeking investments from local corporations
and the city itself, to the tune of $40.5 million -- an amount that would've
covered the maharishi's asking price as well as needed renovations at the
site. But again, no deal.
At present, the Clarion hotel remains on
the market, and is available to potential buyers, says Jeffrey M. Livingston,
managing director for CB Richard Ellis' Hartford offices, the real estate
brokerage firm with which the maharishi's listed the property. Livingston
wouldn't discuss his client's asking price, but did confirm the hotel is
"available."
The problem with attracting potential investors,
says Dan Matos of New York-based Capital Properties Inc., which owns five
buildings on Constitution Plaza, has always been the building itself. It's
estimated that -- thanks to a total lack of maintenance -- it would take
more than $15 million to bring the hotel up to modern building codes and
standards.
"It would be an extensive renovation job,"
says Harry Freeman, Hartford's economic development director. "It's a total
gut rehabilitation." There's a significant amount of asbestos in the hotel
that would need to be expunged, he adds, and a rodent infestation problem
that would need to be addressed.
"It's never sold because the asking price
has always been too high, and to be honest the building is, for all practical
purposes, obsolete," says Matos. "So whoever buys it is going to have in
front of them a significant renovation job, just to bring the value of
the property to zero. That'll cost around $15 million, the renovation.
So, that's pretty daunting to anyone. It's a real tough business deal for
anyone.
"I think the maharishi could sell this
building for $2 million, $3 million," Matos continues. "I think if the
maharishi knew 10 years ago that he'd still be holding on to this hotel,
still be paying taxes on it and not using it, he would've walked away from
it."
What, if anything, has the city done to
take over this concrete albatross? Well, Peters says that before his fourth
term as mayor concluded two years ago, he, as well as then-City Manager
Saundra Kee Borges, had instructed the city's corporation counsel to explore
the legalities of taking ownership of the Clarion Hotel building under
eminent domain.
The problem with that move, according to
one source from the corporation counsel office who asked not to be identified,
is that such an action would've ended up being a white elephant for Hartford.
"The idea of us taking that on wouldn't make any sense," says the source.
"We could go after it, but with the kind of budget shortfall we have, we
tend to look at these things very cautiously ... . We're trying to get
out of the property-ownership business, because we want to expand our tax
base."
Plus, when it came down to identifying
what public use the building could serve, city officials were at a complete
loss, the source explains.
The city did come close to foreclosing
on the property back in 1995, when the maharishi owed more than $870,000
in delinquent back taxes. But at the 11th hour, payment was made. Since
then, claims Thomas Morrisson, the city's finance director, it's been the
same exact situation every year -- the maharishi waits until the very last
minute to settle his tax debts with Hartford, preventing the city from
foreclosing.
In fact, two weeks ago, the maharishi settled
his 2003 tax debts, paying Hartford more than $162,000 -- more than $9,000
of that figure, accrued interest.
Still Freeman says he's optimistic that
the Clarion hotel will, in perhaps even the next few months, be sold to
developers. He says he thinks it will, in time, prove to be an asset.
"The maharishi's expressed more interest
in accepting reasonable offers," Freeman says. "As work has progressed
at Adriaen's Landing, we knew that it would stimulate more interest in
the Clarion. ... I think you're going to see some positive developments
there within the next few months."
Calls to several of the maharishi's Connecticut
contacts, seeking comment for this article, were fruitless. |
