MASON CITY – A dilapidated hotel that devolved into a serious eyesore near downtown Mason City has been sold, and it will be under renovation immediately.
The former Americas Best Value Inn, 24 5th Street SW, has been sold, local realtor and commercial property specialist Brett Schoneman tells NIT this afternoon.
The buyers are “experienced operators” of hotels, he says, but declined to give specifics this early. The sales price was $350,000 and the new hotel will be an Econolodge with 46 rooms.
“This is an extremely important sale in continuing the development south of the multi-purpose center and convention hotel. We expect this to open up even more investment into this area and give a more affordable hotel option for hockey families than the new product being built.”
Renovation of the hotel will begin “almost immediately.” The hotel had been shuttered by city building inspectors months ago after serious issues were found inside. Cost to renovate could reach hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This news is another step toward cleaning up the area around the downtown and is likely a spin-off of the new multi-use arena being built just across the street in Southbridge Mall. Prior to closing up, the hotel was a frequent stop for Mason City police due to a range of issues, usually connected to rowdy customers.
Its better than nothing for now but Econolodge does not exactly attract the right kinda crowd now does it?
Unless if they are participative contributors to the local economy with green grounds and a visually friendly place, flowers / trees, lights during Chriistmas etc, may help a little. Definitely need local law enforcement to patrol that area constantly. We do not need Detroit moving into the neighborhood again. Econolodge and a real diner? Well lit and visually appealing or else it turns into another monthly social security haven.
They could have turned it into, at the very least, high end studio condo units and sold them at $150k a piece or more.
You may not be aware but the EAST COAST and the WEST COAST is becoming increasingly expensive and no one wants to move to the shitty south. So the Mid West is becoming an attractive destination. DO NOT discredit Mason City. Also, sea level and weather patterns are changing pushing people inland to the midwest.
Mason City has the infrastructure to attract people employed online. IT Web people who work strictly online can make their home for much cheaper in Mason City than they could in Seattle, Los Angeles, Houston, New York, DC, etc etc.
Apparently, someone believes that Mason CIty is not going down the toilet. Why else would someone invest in this town? And they must know that there will be a need or they wouldn’t have invested in it. Keep on bitchin all you haters.
What need could there be for ANOTHER place to get a room? please enlighten these “haters”. they must not be as smart as you are? You are a smart guy, im sure. theres no chance yore just some guy who doesnt know what hes talking about. we can tell, youre an impressive individual! how many hotels and how many motels do we have now? its so hard finding open rooms at places located close to popular shopping and eateries in mason city. it makes sense we need this place refurbished when its less than a mile from at least 4 hotels off the top of my head….. oh and a bed and breakfast. for real this towns gonna sink without econolodge glad youve helped the rest of us idiots see the light.
I don’t see why you would care. It’s private investment. Whether or not the market can support another hotel doesn’t matter one iota to me. It’s the investors money, not mine.
because I have to live in this town and suffer the consequence of the ressurection of the biggest junkie motel in mason city. this place going out of business was a good thing for our downtown. put all the undesirables out at the ashley inn where perverts and addicts belong. i dont care about the investors or their money. I care that it was starting to shape up we had less of those people in that part of town. any place that tempts addicts to form groups is a tumor, i think we can agree? we need to spend some time cleaning this town up. getting rid of the slumlords and their run down properties. we need to try to have a city ordinance against section 8 housing. we need prairie ridge to lose funding when they help almost nobody quit drugs EVER but keep raking in cash to do so. this town needs to clean up before we waste time on infrastructure that wont be used or profitted from to its potential because their is a freakin meth head riding a stolen bike down every sidewalk in this town. the police know what a meth head looks like? dont they? why do they let them run around unchecked, you can tell when someone is drunk and arrest them based on that but you cant tell who is high on crystal meth? if you cant spot a meth addict youre blind or intentionally ignorant.
brett schoeneman is such a piece of shit scum bag coke head.
He’s always been great to me.
cool, you do coke with him?
dont rent from him. know someone who did and he kept sending obviously addicted to meth people to maintain the property. i agree with op. scum.
When is this shooting gallery gonna be done? If youre a hockey family and you cant afford a decent room in a real hotel not filled with addicts than youve over shot your expenses and need to start living within your means. junior isnt gonna be the next big thing in hockey. hes just gonna have fake teeth by the time he is 17. maybe reevaluate your financials because thats retarded. sports are not more important than anything else. sports are not a requirement. parents who know how to budget responsibly is vastly more important than hockey equipment.
Econolodge??? when im looking for a motel I don’t even look at a econlodge. Oh well with the hockey families spending all their money on equipment and motels they should have the money to stay here or maybe they will have friends or family who live at a condo on Dill Pickles River Walk and can stay there for free
Maybe they can build another hotel/ motel where the old Target store was that caved in. It would be nice to get rid of the eye-sore too. Since we are in such great need for hotels in MC.
l believe it was on ask the mayor this last week the new hotel was going to run $160.00 a night/room
If this one is cheaper, who cares about the view…..
Price is rarely the deciding factor when people choose which hotel to stay at. Location, amenities, brand loyalty programs all easily trump price.
Geezus this site finds the dumbest of the dumb in north iowa.
And you come here to put in your 2 cents.
ya, if people dont shop for lodging based on your criteria they are probably dumb. or youre just living with delusions of grandeur. or youre just above the rest of us lowly morons. or youre a dick with a complex…… I bet its that youre just some jerkoff who thinks his opinions are facts.
Hey dummy. If people truly used low price as their selection criteria, the market would be flooded with Super 8’s and Econo Lodge’s. That doesn’t occur though because their are other criteria that trumps price for 95% if consumers. Where did you stay last time you visited Las Vegas??? Was it the cheapest hotel in town??? I bet not. Why didn’t you stay in the cheapest hotel? See my earlier post if you can’t figure out why.
Perhaps the old target site could have housed a sales and distribution office for a corrugated packaging company, a shop for any number of building trades such as refrigeration, building automation, electrical, etc., or a cold storage facility, or a office for a consulting process or nfineering firm? You know, all the sorts of ancillary development that occurs when a large scale meat packing plant opens up in a city. But nope. The wise citizens of Mason City said no thanks – too many Mexicans.
Stop blaming the city council for the derelict condition of this city and look to it’s residents. It wasn’t the city council that was against the packing plant (and all the good jobs that ancillary businesses would have created ).
That packing plant not coming to Mason City, was the best thing to happen. Take a drive down Hwy. 69 around the Eagle Grove area. You will see what the Mason City area would have looked like. Cafo’s every were.
Just waiting for the roof of Sears to cave in. They should turn the area back into the fair grounds.
its almost as if the massive amount of space that is south port would have been the smarter place to bbuild an event center that will sit empty outside of hockey, you cant get a worth while crowd in that space to see a band, cant have moto sports in that location. its useless.
How would your Southport Multi Purpose Center be paid for?!?!?!?! That is what all you dullards in this town do not understand. Multipurpose arenas are not free!
The downtown location makes sense because a PRIVATE investor wanted to build a hotel in the downtown area. This PRIVATE investment opened the door to access state grant money which required a minimum amount of PRIVATE investment to access the state funds. Plus a portion of the funding is coming from TIF funds. There will be more tax revenue coming in from the downtown area than there would be at the Southport area.
So the downtown location makes it possible to access state funds and maximize TIF revenue to pay for the multi purpose arena. How would your Southport Arena be paid for?!?!?!?
Somebody with some common sense, not on NIT, no way. They’re not getting my pop/beer cans.
youre telling me in no way could they hotel and event center been built on southport? youre telling me that theres no way people would have driven six blocks to get to this hotel bursting with luxury character and class? im am not aoc. i know things need to be funded. but the same funding could have taken place and the project moved down six blocks to where it makes any fuc**** sense at all. you really think the event center is worthwhile or big enough for anything really interesting? really? its the size of fareway lololol its bullshit. just mason city trying to be the big city it will never be. 27,000 and dropping. nobody WANTS to live in mason city and nobody WANTS to go out of their way to come here to sit in what is basically the smallest modern event center in the country to watch local cover bands play ac/dc songs. I bet you brett micheals plays it! wooohooo. you think the event center is going to be much more than another mostly empty downtown ghost? lololol ok then.
Your Southport arena would not have the same access to funds as the downtown site. No investor came forward to build a hotel at Southport. Plus the catchment of TIF dollars is exponentially more downtown than at Southport.
Downtown is the more fiscally logical location. Period.
I really doubt that it was under 10 feet of water. But then again, maybe to a small person it was.
…I hope the new owners can make a go of this but I have to try to wrap my mind around the fact that this area was and is sitting directly in the middle of a known flood plain and was under 10 feet of water not that long ago???
yes. mason city has an outrageous need for more motels and hotels. i mean they are only half empty or better every day of the year. Seriously though this is a positive for mason city. I know i felt bad when they closed motel meth down and the amount of dirty people renting porn from family video plummeted. i mean those are mason cities biggest product next to doors and egg patties, crystal meth addicts and we went and condemned the most centrally located shithole they enjoyed shooting up in! We should be ashamed. In any case why do we need an econolodge when we have this awesome totally intelligent hotel project coming through to make no money ruin traffic flow during construction and break up the skyline with an enormous monument to local governments absolute incompetence!!!!!!
A short stay at Motel Mold won’t harm you !!
Not only do we allow pets we include them!!
Pet rats !!!
We will leave the light on
Is this in the flood zone?
Yes< it is. That is why the facility is full of mold.
I like your reporting. Thank You!