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New Port Richey to seek bids for Hacienda restoration

 
New Port Richey looks to preserve the historic Hacienda Hotel’s structural integrity and reopen it as a boutique hotel.
New Port Richey looks to preserve the historic Hacienda Hotel’s structural integrity and reopen it as a boutique hotel.
Published Sept. 2, 2015

NEW PORT RICHEY — Excitement continues to brew for the planned redevelopment of the historic Hacienda Hotel. On Tuesday night, New Port Richey City Council members approved putting out to bid an initial rehabilitation project for the building.

For more than a decade, city officials have looked at how to redevelop the landmark hotel on Main Street in the heart of downtown. The city purchased the building in 2004 for $2.21 million, but it has remained dormant since.

Now, on the heels of reaching an agreement with the Rosner family to return the building to use as a boutique hotel, the city is poised to spend a $1 million state grant to preserve its historic structural integrity.

During this week's City Council meeting, the city's architect, Bert Bender of Key West-based Bender & Associates Architects, presented an estimate of $1.1 million to complete rehabilitation work that will use the building's remaining original infrastructure, discovered during assessments, including windows, stairway columns, staircases, moldings and cornices. The rest of the building will be restored with the help of historic photographs.

"It's really quite a remarkable project," Bender said.

Bender said a tentative time line calls for the project to be put out to bid between Sept. 25 and Oct. 22; a contract would be awarded by Oct. 30, with an eye toward substantial completion by late April.

Deputy Mayor Bill Phillips also called on the architect and city staff to set up tours of the building for the public before construction begins. Phillips said public excitement continues over the restoration project, a sentiment echoed by former council member Bob Langford, who is a member of the newly formed Friends of the Hacienda and Historic New Port Richey nonprofit organization.

That group, which is looking to help the city raise funds for the Hacienda redevelopment, will have a ribbon-cutting with the West Pasco Chamber of Commerce in front of the former hotel at 4 p.m. Wednesday.