Posted by someone who knows (64.12.96.44) on July 27, 2002 at 21:21:41:
In Reply to: Save the memories, but not the building posted by Dan on July 25, 2002 at 06:28:33:
Dan's comments strike me as a little dubious. I have been inside the hotel. The shops, ballrooms, lobby and Cocoanut Grove are extremely salvagable and beautiful. The bungalows are the structures that are a little "iffy" in places.
There are spores and asbestos that needs to be removed, but that is common with old building restoration. Any architect will tell you this.
The atmosphere of the main building is still grand and a little intimidating for people who enter, expecting to find a dump.
Granted it would take over a 100 million to fully restore the hotel and grounds.
The Biltmore Hotel restoration project ran about 87 million in restoration fees. Similar millions were spent restoring the Roosevelt Hotel.
For the record, both the Biltmore and the Roosevelt hotels were about to be demolished because "experts" deemed the building's architectural merit was insubstantive and that the cost of renovation was too costly.
Those who complain about the Ambassador's restoration costs do not (or will not for business purposes) acknowledge that tearing down and rebuilding a large structure on the Ambassador site would cost much more than simply restoring the original property.
Anyone who has ever owned a piece of property in LA knows what a cut throat and relentlessly greedy real estate market we have. Developers love tearing things down and rebuilding because it earns them more money.
So don't believe the false information concerning the property. The nay-sayers, who aren't architects, are the same people who centuries ago swore up and down that the world was flat.
I can safely say that the hotel is ripe for preservation (and that the world is--to last of my knowledge--round.)