Marysville officials have ‘no confidence’ in developer over hotel; state of emergency declared

Marysville city officials said they have “no confidence” the operators of the historic Hotel Marysville property will accept financial responsibility for a fire that decimated the aging structure, prompting the City Council to unanimously approve Friday a state of emergency declaration due to the outsized economic impact the fire is having on the city and Yuba-Sutter region.

Flames sparked Saturday in the upper floors of the crumbling structure of concrete, brick and timber sitting vacant at the corner of Fifth and E streets for nearly four decades. Businesses have suffered economic loss after officials shutdown roads because the building faces imminent risk of collapse.

And no one has been able to enter the site to determine the next steps as Marysville encounters a strain on its resources that were overextended as of two days ago, said City Manager Jim Schaad.

City council members, Marysville Mayor Chris Branscum, Schaad and Marysville Police Chief Christian Sachs met in a closed session during an emergency meeting to discuss the threat to public services and Fifth Street, the thoroughfare that carries Highway 70 through downtown. The proclamation was approved in the hopes that the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services will provide monetary aid.

“This incident, the aftermath, has devastated and taxed the local resources,” Schaad said.

Who will pay for hotel to be torn down?

Negotiations were ongoing between the property manager Urban Smart Growth and the city to address which entity would bear financial responsibility for the building’s demolition and how quickly it can be done, Schaad said. Urban Smart Growth indicated it is self-insured and does not have casualty insurance, he said.

“I am not confident that at this point (Urban Smart Growth) will (accept responsibility) because of the devastating impact that this has had on our residents, our community, our businesses, commuters and a movement of goods within the region,” Schaad said during the news conference.

Dan Katz, the legal counsel with Urban Smart Growth, did not directly answer a question about assuming responsibility but noted their firm is not the owner of the building.

Property records show Feather River Plaza LLC has owned the site since at least 2004. The company could not be reached for comment.

An Urban Smart Growth spokesperson said the Los Angeles-based developer offered to donate the building to the city, according to a statement sent to reporters and first reported Thursday by the Marysville Appeal-Democrat.

The city said it rejected the developer’s donation because the demolition costs alone exceeded the value of the property, said Dan Flores, the city’s community development director. At the time of the fire, the building was listed for sale at $925,000, a cost of $12 per square foot.

Hotel Marysville remains too unsafe to survey

City officials have not yet determined the future of the 73,040-square-foot, five-story building, but Branscum indicated demolition would be the only path forward. Four to five companies will tour the site next week and estimate costs to tear it down, he said.

But it was still unknown when anyone could survey the damage inside. Flames, estimated to have burned as high as 1100 degrees, may have turned the steel brittle. Concrete likely absorbed the gallons of water poured to douse the fire, leading to further deterioration, according to an assessment conducted by engineering firm Jackson & Sands Engineering, Inc. It was released to the public by Schaad on Wednesday.

Marysville Fire Chief Kyle Heggstrom said arson investigators have focused on reviewing surveillance footage and trying to find witnesses since they cannot inspect the interior. He’s sent drones into the structure, but it doesn’t replace people carefully canvassing the cinders.

He said it was unknown if the fire was human-caused, but the structure was disconnected from utilities and had been vacant for nearly 40 years. It was likely there were not any natural or accidental ignition points, he said, but the fire’s cause remains under investigation.

Traffic choke point on Highway 70

Caltrans closed the Highway 70 portion of E Street, the city’s main thoroughfare and downtown strip. Both directions between Third and Sixth streets are expected to remain closed until the building’s danger to the roadway can be addressed, according to Caltrans District 3 officials.

Some neighboring businesses laid off employees and travel times have been seriously delayed, Flores said. The emergency proclamation states there have been traffic delays of up to 40 minutes during peak commute hours, and that a “vast majority” of Marysville’s police resources have been dedicated to traffic control.

But the devastation affects residents living outside Marysville, Yuba County Supervisor Gary Bradford said during the public comment portion of the meeting. He noted many elected officials came to the meeting to support the City Council’s actions as the road closures have stymied a nexus for travel between Sacramento and north state destinations including Yuba City, Chico, Grass Valley and the upper tier of the Sierra Nevada.

“I certainly have constituents — and myself included — that think twice right now about coming to not only Marysville but also to Yuba City because of the amount of additional drive time that it takes,” Bradford said. “And maybe I choose not to visit businesses that I would otherwise visit.”

Schaad said the city could pay overtime to police officers, firefighters and public works employees managing traffic and investigating for a “short” while.

“But, where we are right now, we have people that are just physically exhausted from the amount of time spent here,” Schaad said. “We just can’t sustain this forever.”