Christian group’s plan for Sanford’s historic Mayfair Inn worries residents
A New York-based fundamentalist Christian organization, surrounded by allegations of money laundering and visa fraud, plans to turn the historic Mayfair Inn in downtown Sanford into a worship center, vocational school and dormitories.
Sanford residents and city staff, however, say plans by World Olivet Assembly for the three-story Mediterranean-style building — which drew celebrities at its peak, including mobster Al Capone and actress Tallulah Bankhead — would not be appropriate for the property overlooking Lake Monroe and the city’s future plans for its downtown area.
They argue the 1925 structure and surrounding grassy area are better suited for a commercial development that would draw residents and visitors to the city’s core, such as a hotel or mix of apartments and shops.
“I just find this all very troubling,” resident Carole Hinshaw said. “We’re really concerned about this organization or that it’s going to eventually get torn down.”
But Branson Bowen of PBC Construction, which represents the property owners, said their plan is to keep the exterior of the old hotel intact but completely renovate the inside, including the old cage elevators, wood floors and large ballroom. The building has sat vacant since 2016 when former owner, Ethnos 360, sold it to private investors who had hoped to return it to its glory days as a high-end hotel.
“We don’t want this torn down,” Bowen said this week. “It’s a massive and beautiful building.”
Last year, a group named 1000 East First Estates LLC purchased the 74,913-square-foot building and surrounding 6.5 acres for $6 million, according to county records. The entity is headed by Marian “Mark” Spisak, the executive director of the World Olivet Assembly, a global denomination of evangelical churches founded in 2000.
Bowen said that 1000 East First Estates LLC and World Olivet Assembly “are one and the same.”
At the time of the purchase, World Olivet Assembly representatives said their plan also was to also use the former Mayfair Inn as the organization’s southern headquarters, particularly because it sits near the Orlando Sanford International Airport, according to GrowthSpotter, which first reported the sale in June 2022.
“WOA plans to use the former Mayfair Inn as its southern headquarters for the denomination, allowing our administration to cover more areas, especially with the focus on overseas pioneering and mission research to prepare our missionaries to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Spisak said in a statement sent to GrowthSpotter.
Jane Lee, a spokesperson for World Olivet Assembly in Dover Plains, N.Y., said in an email to the Sentinel on Friday that once the organization gets approval and permits from Sanford “renovations can start fairly soon.”
“We hope we can open the building gradually in a timeframe of 6 to 12 months,” Lee said in her email.
Bruce Anderson, an architect with Anderson and Associates in Sanford, submitted an application to the city on behalf of the new owners for a special permit to allow the organization to use the old hotel as a place for worship, vocational school and 161 dormitory rooms.
In a city staff report, planner Darren Ebersole wrote that World Olivet Assembly’s plans for the Mayfair Inn property “is not consistent with the city’s comprehensive plan or sound and generally accepted land use planning practices and principles.” City planning staff recommend that Sanford’s planning and zoning commission deny the organization’s request.
But at the start of Thursday’s planning and zoning commission meeting to decide the request, Anderson withdrew the application and said he would bring it back at a later date. He and Bowen said they want to continue meeting with the city planners before submitting a new application.
“Right now, we can’t give you a time,” Anderson said afterward.
Olivet University, which is tied to the World Olivet Assembly, was founded more than 20 years ago as a Bible college in California by evangelical pastor David Jang. It currently has satellite campuses in Riverside, Calif.; San Francisco, Washington D.C.; St. Louis; and Nashville, Tenn.
In 2020, World Olivet Assembly purchased 13 parcels — including the old First Baptist Church of Sanford building — on Park Avenue in Sanford’s historic district, for $2.75 million, according to county records. On its website, Olivet University states that the Sanford buildings are used as a satellite campus. However, no one answered the doors during a recent visit by an Orlando Sentinel reporter.
In March, California state Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Consumer Affairs alleging 14 violations of state regulations on Olivet University’s main campus in Anza and campus in San Francisco. Those violations of California code alleged in the complaint included insufficient course offerings for students, faculty not meeting minimum education requirements and a failure by the school to demonstrate it had sufficient financial resources.
This comes amid a federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security into allegations of money laundering, labor trafficking and fraud at Olivet University, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The report stated that federal agents were looking for evidence of international students, primarily from South Korea and China, being recruited from overseas and then forced to work at the school.
According to a 2014 Mother Jones article, former religious followers of Jang said they were brought to the United States on student visas to study at Olivet University. But they said they spent most of their time working for little pay and writing “clickbait” articles for International Business Times, an online magazine published by IBT Media, which is owned by Jang.
In her email to the Sentinel, Lee of World Olivet Assembly distanced her organization from the university.
“World Olivet Assembly is a church network and denomination established in New York. Olivet University is a school established in California,” Lee said in her email. “Both are separate legal entities.”
The old Mayfair Inn tucked between San Juan and Mellonville avenues was built in 1925 at the peak of the Florida real-estate boom at a cost of $5 million at the time by banker and former mayor Forrest Lake and other investors.
The tony hotel, known at the time as Hotel Forrest Lake with 158 guest rooms with private bathrooms, quickly became a draw for wealthy visitors from northern states looking for a quiet place to vacation during the mild Florida winters.
The hotel closed in 1929 following the stock market crash and visitors stopped coming to Sanford. But in 1935, the hotel reopened as the Mayfair Inn and was redeveloped with a chandeliered ballroom, a large staircase and a cage elevator operated by a bellhop.
In 1937, flower grower W.E. Kirchoff Jr. purchased the property and continued operating it as a hotel for just over a decade.
In 1948, the New York Giants baseball organization took over the Mayfair Inn and added a swimming pool overlooking Lake Monroe. The Giants used a portion of the hotel for its players during spring games until the mid-1960s.
It was later used by the Sanford Naval Academy for Boys.
In 1976, New Tribes Mission purchased the property and established it as the headquarters and dormitories for the nondenominational missionary organization. New Tribes later changed its name to Ethnos 360 and sold the former hotel in 2017 for $3.5 million to KPHM.
That year, the city’s planning and zoning commission granted KPMH’s request to allow it to turn the property back into its glory days as a high-living hotel. However, work renovating the old Mayfair Inn was never completed.
The total assessed value for the Mayfair Inn property in 2022 was nearly $3.3 million according to the Seminole County Property Appraiser’s Office. The tax bill last year was $67,417.
However, because World Olivet Assembly is a not-for-profit organization based in New York and the entity now owns the property, it would not generate any tax revenue, according to city officials.
Sanford resident Michelle McCann said plans to turn the historic building into a worship center and religious school would not fit in with Sanford’s vision for its downtown.
“My main concern is the logistics of renovating that property and bringing in that many people,” she said. “It’s just not appropriate for that.”
