Royal Albertheaded to auction

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This article was published 27/10/2017 (2897 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The historic downtown Royal Albert Arms Hotel is headed for a mortgage auction.

The 104-year-old, 54-room hotel goes on the block on Nov. 15.

Owner Daren Jorgenson said he opted to put the hotel up for auction after legal issues made it impossible for him to sell it outright.

“I for sure screwed up many times with the Royal Albert,” Jorgenson told the Free Press in a series of email exchanges. “That property has a curse on me and it will be great to see it finally go to someone else in 21/2 weeks.”

The Royal Albert had earned a reputation for hosting local indie and punk bands as well as some big-name acts, including Green Day, Nickelback and Dave Grohl, before Nirvana and the Foo Fighters.

The hotel was also the scene of a grisly murder in 2003, when police discovered a victim had been stabbed, beheaded, castrated, dismembered and disembowelled in one of the hotel’s rooms. Police also recovered jewelry stolen from actress Susan Sarandon, who had been filming in the city at the time, in the same room.

Jorgenson, who came to prominence as one of the city’s innovative Internet pharmacists, bought the hotel in 2007. A water leak forced it to close in 2011. It reopened briefly in 2013. The hotel has been operated since 2015 as what Jorgenson described as a welfare hotel — providing housing on a monthly basis for people on government assistance.

Jorgenson said the hotel has been appraised at $2.8 million operating as a transient hotel, adding he’s prepared to offer a no-interest second mortgage, with no payments for five years, to a successful buyer who puts in a bid above the outstanding mortgage and liens ($1.65 million) and commits to restoring the hotel to a live music venue.

“I am hopeful someone will buy it that is interested in reviving the live music scene,” he said, adding the hotel’s 54 rooms are fully booked at monthly rates ranging from $550 to $850.

Jorgenson said the hotel came close to being sold in 2016 to a trio of local investors, but the deal never closed. He said he had turned operation of the hotel over to the investors in 2015 and he subsequently became embroiled in a legal dispute with them, which he said has prevented the sale of the hotel and forced him to put it up for a mortgage auction.

“I have had all the expenses on that property since 2015, but no revenues from the room rents,” adding there are outstanding arrears for property taxes and utility payments in addition to the mortgage. “I have had a ton of people wanting to buy it but cannot sell it because of” the legal dispute.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca