Fresh Loaf

Here’s the good news: Only days after the Clermont Hotel was condemned by county health inspectors for a staggering array of gag-inducing infractions, work began to clean up and restore the 1920s-era building for future operation as a newly renovated hotel, complete with a restaurant.

Here’s the bad news: The company that’s apparently doing the renovation and will manage the property, Cobb-based Kronos Hotels, has one of the worst reputations in the entire industry.

In fact, it’s already off to a bad start. Although work began on the hotel in early January — as evidenced by the huge dumpster for construction debris out front — it appears that nobody bothered to get a building permit. A spokesperson for the planning department confirmed to me earlier today that the work going on at the hotel was in violation of city ordinance and that a stop-work order would be issued soon, if it hadn’t been already.

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The Clermont Hotel — unfit for human consumption? Hell, I could’ve told ‘em that.

The AJC reports that Fulton County health inspectors have ordered the landmark hotel shut down by the end of the month because, well, it’s nasty and gross:

“There are several issues that would have to be addressed,” said Kevin Jones, a manager with the Fulton County Department of Health and Wellness. Dirty linen, old bedding and bed bug stains were among them, he said. Inspectors also found mold growing on the walls, black water spilling from faucets and broken toilet fixtures.

Shocking, yes? Not to this reporter, who spent a week there a few years back and lived to write a cover story about it.

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1. Video: Midtown Atlanta parking deck collapse aftermath (Weirdly, this ain’t the first collapse tied to Hardin Construction.)

2. Inman Park Properties implosion leaves neighborhood landmarks in limbo (UPDATE: Foreclosure of Inman-owned Clermont Hotel has been delayed.)

3. Profile: Matthew Cardinale, editor of Atlanta Progressive News (Cardinale isn’t one to shy away from controversy. Just read the comments to this post …)

4. Atlanta tax hikes: Profiles in cowardice (Best chocolate eclair analogy ever.)

5. Tiffany Brown joins mayoral race! (We heart ironic punctuation — and mediocre GPAs!)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Good news, people — you can book your fiancee’s parents into the Clermont Hotel this weekend secure in the knowledge that the famed Ponce flophouse won’t be changing hands any time soon.

The hotel’s foreclosure auction, originally scheduled for tomorrow morning on the Fulton courthouse steps, has been pushed back at least 90 days, thanks to a last-minute deal worked out between Inman Park Properties owner Jeff Notrica and his New York-based lender.

Real-estate broker Gene Kansas, who’s marketing the Clermont to potential buyers, says the move helps Notrica’s chances of unloading the property. “He’s a motivated seller,” Kansas says.

The three-month stay of execution also allows the Clermont Hotel Re-Design Contest to proceed. Kansas conceived of the contest as a marketing ploy to gain free publicity (see, it’s working!), but now says it will give Clermont-philes a way to pay homage to a beloved Atlanta landmark. Nearly 500 people have downloaded the contest submission form so far and the deadline isn’t until July 22.

(Photo by Tara-Lynn Pixley)

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Blondie sez: Check out the updated CL article

Got a few million to spare — in cash? Then you could be Blondie’s new landlord!

Next Tuesday, the Clermont Hotel and four other chunks of real estate owned by the troubled Inman Park Properties are scheduled to be auctioned off on the courthouse steps. John Mansour, a local lawyer representing Fairway Capital, the New York-based lender that’s foreclosing on the Clermont, told the AJC early last week that his client was negotiating with IPP founder Jeff Notrica. On Friday, however, Mansour told CL he didn’t have an update.

Based on recent experience, the outlook isn’t good. In fact, it’s pretty dismal.

Last week, I called Danny Glusman, sales manager for Inman Park Properties, in an effort to confirm which of the company’s many parcels in foreclosure had wound up back in the lenders’ hands. I picked random addresses from a long list I’d compiled by searching through public foreclosure notices, but Glusman was able to identify only one — the old Hilan Theatre in Virginia-Highland —that had been spared from foreclosure by a last-minute deal with the lender.

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1. Congress debates, votes on cap-and-trade energy bill (Good news: The House passed the monumental energy-conversation bill. Bad news: Georgia Congressman Paul Broun has embarrassed the entire state.)

2. Clermont foreclosure is tip of the iceberg (The plot thickens.)

3. Michael Jackson tributes in Atlanta (Atlanta celebrates the King of Pop. Twitter crashes. And Perez Hilton weeps.)

4. Coolest contest ever: Redesign the Clermont Hotel (The contest would have been a lot cooler if the seedy hotel wasn’t in danger of foreclosure. See No. 2.)

5. Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter told to vacate building (In the end, surprisingly, the homeless prevailed.)

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UPDATE: This article has been expanded with additional reporting.

Little has changed about the Clermont Hotel — or its time-capsule strip club — since Atlanta real estate mogul Jeff Notrica took over the Ponce de Leon Avenue landmark six years ago.

Just as he promised when he bought the 85-year-old building, Notrica resisted the typical developer’s temptation to chop it up into condos or turn it into modern apartments. Downstairs, the storied Clermont Lounge was left untouched and remains its gloriously seedy self.

But it may be that the hands-off approach Notrica, 44, has taken with the Clermont and many of his other properties — a land baron’s acquisitiveness tempered by a collector’s appreciation for each new bauble — has simultaneously helped bring his intown real estate empire crashing down.

Unless a deal is struck between Notrica’s Inman Park Properties and New York-based lender Fairway Capital — or unless a deep-pocketed buyer steps forward — the Clermont Hotel and its lounge will be auctioned off on the courthouse steps July 2.

If that happens, it will be only the latest, if largest, in a long series of foreclosures suffered by Inman Park Properties over the past three months. The company’s apparent meltdown has involved some of the most recognizable and beloved buildings in East Atlanta, Little Five Points, Poncey-Highland and Midtown — causing many residents of those same neighborhoods to cheer the company’s downfall.

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UPDATE: This might NOT be the coolest contest ever, because the Clermont is facing foreclosure. More to come. Stay tuned!

Atlanta’s favorite den of iniquity is calling “all designers, architects, students, creative geniuses, butlers, bell boys, photographers, tourists, bartenders, dancers and engineers” to try their hand at redesigning the iconic Clermont Hotel.

But it’s not the hotel’s infamous basement lounge — where boobs obliterate beer cans and strippers strut their sometimes sagging stuff — that needs a makeover. No way.

Rather, it’s the hotel’s lobby, rooftop and guestrooms that are dying for a new look. (And, in the case of the rooms, a new set of sheets.) The real estate brokerage firm that’s attempting to sell the hotel — while preserving the lounge, of course — is offering $1,000 (rad), a weekend at the Clermont (sorta rad, as long as you bring your own linens, air freshener and earplugs) and a year’s supply of Whynatte energy drink (a seemingly unappealing but reportedly tasty latte in a can) to the winning design.

Second prize is somewhat less desirable: a PBR tall boy and a lap dance.

According to the submission form:

Candidates are requested to submit design concepts that visually convey the re-birth of The Clermont Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. The Clermont Hotel is a long standing icon just to the east of Midtown Atlanta and home to the nationally renowned Clermont Lounge which opened in 1965. Submissions should capture the uniqueness and funkiness the Clermont is known for. … Candidates are encouraged to work within perspective views (supplied on web site) and provide a concept statement.

The deadline for entries is July 22. Might I suggest this for inspiration?

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BLONDIE STILL IN ACTION: The Clermont Lounge’s infamous beer-can-crusher will be available for your viewing pleasure. (Photo by Joeff Davis)

We heard back from Inman Park properties agent Danny Glusman and he tells us that, while the company has been marketing the Clermont Hotel, the idea is to attract investors, not buyers.

Inman Park Properties bought the 1940-era hotel nearly five years ago from its longtime owner, Lillian Loudermilk, for an undisclosed price that likely was between $3 million and $4 million. But the company, which owns a number of historic buildings in Atlanta and Savannah, kept the hotel’s veteran management team in place and, apart from putting up a few new signs, seemingly hasn’t changed so much as a curtain.

Glusman says he’s shopping for a “renovation partner to invest in the hotel” so his company can make some much-needed repairs and bring the property up to code. The hotel, for instance, is possibly the last building in Atlanta to employ full-time elevator operators. (And, speaking as a former short-term resident, I wouldn’t be surprised if simply replacing the carpeting qualifies as a Superfund project.) Glusman, however, wouldn’t reveal how much money is needed to fix up the property.

As for the beloved Clermont Lounge, Glusman says there are no plans to fix what ain’t broke: Blondie and crew are welcome to keep gyrating downstairs as long as their pelvic joints hold out.

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