Staff photo by Tim Barber /
The Cloud Springs Lodge.On a typical day, the stairs at the Cloud Springs Lodge may not seem so bad. But rust covers the steps, decking and support columns. If the 90 people who live there need to rush out at once during an emergency, an architect concluded last fall, the stairs could cave in.
“A catastrophic collapse,” Jason Kilgore wrote to the extended stay hotel’s manager after two inspections in October.
The hotel’s staff reinforced the five troublesome sets of stairs with wood. This was a temporary fix, Kilgore wrote. The hotel has since replaced one of the outdoor staircases. But the other four? Nothing has changed, more than nine months later.
“I’ll start working on the stairs tomorrow,” hotel manager Patrick McFadden testified during a hearing in Catoosa County Superior Court on Tuesday, “if the plans are approved.”
But, he argued, Fort Oglethorpe city officials have blocked the hotel’s efforts to fix the problem in recent months by refusing to approve plans for the project. City officials, meanwhile, say the hotel failed to solve the issues with the stairs and other parts of the building in a timely manner. The two sides negotiated for months. Now, the city is asking Judge Ralph Van Pelt Jr. to let them close down the hotel. McFadden, in turn, is asking the judge to let it stay open and give him more time to solve the problem.