Five months after the city of East Ridge condemned and shut down the Superior Creek Lodge, the 42-year-old motel has a new owner who plans to refurbish and reopen the extended-stay hotel under the Budgetel franchise by this fall.
JDH Developers, an Atlanta-based hotel company that specializes in upgrading older hotels, acquired the shuttered Superior Creek Lodge on Friday for $1.4 million. John Patel, the CEO of JDH Developers, said Monday the new owners expect to spend another $1.5 million to $2 million to upgrade and refurbish the 280-room motel at 1410 N. Mack Smith Road.
“We’re going to take everything out and deal with some structural issues to bring it back up to code and back on the market as an extended-stay hotel, hopefully within six months or so,” Patel said. “We’ve started to take out all of the furniture and the floors, and we’ll develop our plans over the next couple of weeks about how to upgrade and reopen this motel.”
The East Ridge motel opened in 1973 as a Days Inn motel and was bought by Kennesaw, Ga., group Superior Creek Lodge II LLC, in 2006 for $3 million. As an extended-stay hotel under the Superior Creek label, the motel was cited and sued by the city of East Ridge for several safety and building code violations in 2010. Last September, the city condemned Superior Creek Lodge, forcing the immediate evacuation of about 750 people who lived there.
East Ridge city building inspectors said the exterior balconies on the aging buildings presented a safety risk. The former owner had 180 days to make the improvements to keep its current use as an extended-stay hotel. But in a statement, motel owner David Gysin said he decided instead to sell the facility.