The City of Erie shut down a downtown Erie hotel Friday morning after declaring it uninhabitable.

City Code Enforcement and Fire Inspectors converged on the Downtown Erie Hotel on W. 18th between State and Peach St. around 9 a.m. for an inspection.

They found several violations egregious enough to shut down the entire hotel.

During an annual inspection last week, City Code Enforcement noticed violations and scheduled Friday's more thorough inspection at the hotel.

Code Enforcement Manager Andy Zimmerman told Erie News Now the violations are were enough to shut down the hotel until all the violations are fixed.

The major problem is that the roof is falling apart, causing lots of water damage on several floors, in fact water is even leaking into electrical panels.

“We did find some violations, and we're concerned about them," said Zimmerman. "At this point, we're going to post it uninhabitable until those violations are corrected."

We were told seven people are currently living in the hotel, and they have to move out immediately.

“Once the violations are corrected, then they can pick up operation again,” said Zimmerman.

Community Shelter Services, Erie county's largest homeless shelter, has an emergency shelter.
Director, Mark Alexa, says while they are full, they're able to make some adjustments for this emergency, "We have some common areas, and some areas that we can close off to take some additional families, we'd have to put up cots and things like that, but we want to be part of the solution so we can help any way we can," said Alexa.

Zimmerman said the city does not like to have to shut down a business, but when it comes to people's safety as far as this building, Zimmerman said it's something they had to do.

“It's all about the safety of the tenants and anybody else that would occupy the building," said Zimmerman. "It's really about their life safety and any first responders who would have to occupy the building as well."

We spoke with the owner of the hotel. He told us there are issues with the roof leaking and other water and electrical concerns. He said he is going to start fixing them, so he can reopen his business as soon as possible.

Zimmerman said the owner is being cooperative.

"He's really cooperative," said Zimmerman. "He really wants to do the right thing, so we'll work with him to get those corrected and get people back in.”


And for Barbara Chaffee, it's all sad to see.
Her father developed the hotel, The Downtown Erie Holiday Inn, in the early 1960's.

For the three decades when her family owned it, it was the place to be, “The hotel, the lounge, the bar, was the place to go, and was recognized by the Holiday Inn system for many, many years as having great food, great staff, it won many awards, and of course the lounge, as most people in Erie can tell you, in certain age groups, that it was the place to hang out,” said Chaffee.

Chaffee says she worked at the hotel for years, and has wonderful memories of great times.

So, she says it has been awful to watch the hotel deteriorate over the years, “Truly, it doesn't represent Erie well, so it is a painful process to watch the hotel deteriorate, and something that was your life, it wasn't just concrete and mortar, it was living to us, because it was always active and there were always great people to meet and great events that happened,” Chaffee reminisced.

Chaffee says when the building was built in the 1960s, builders then said even if you were to continue to reinvest in the property, it only had a life span of 50 years, "The reality is, if you don’t continue to reinvest in a hotel lodging product, there comes a time where its lived its life… and it needs to go,” said Chaffee.