Plans and Drawings for Vacating Inn Property Okoboji Ia
OKOBOJI, Iowa | The new owners of The Inn at Okoboji have no plans to reopen the 121-year-old resort, co-ordinate to the local real manor agent who conducted an online auction for the holding on West Lake Okoboji earlier this fall.
"They've indicated it'south going to be used for residential, the lake portion," Jim Hjelm of The Acre Company in Spencer told lakesbusinessnews.com.
The 82-acre property with 359 feet of shoreline was acquired by Whitecap LLC for $five.7 one thousand thousand, according to documents filed Friday at the Dickinson County Courthouse. Hjelm said he did not know the identities of investors in Whitecap, an Iowa-based limited liability company formed on Oct. 20.
The heir-apparent'south agent, broker Mike Jensen of Arnolds Park, said Thursday the Whitecap LLC principals may never exist publicly identified. Jensen said he was the only Whitecap representative authorized to talk to reporters.
"At this bespeak we accept no plans to publicly identify the buyer or the plans for the property," Jensen said.
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Whitecap LLC was formed Oct. 20, co-ordinate to the Iowa Secretary of State website. Robert D. Andeweg, a Des Moines-based attorney, is listed every bit the visitor'southward registered agent. No officers are listed on the form.
Rumors have circulated in the community for months that the new owner intends to tear down the 155-unit resort to make fashion for new homes fronting the deep, blue water lake. The nearly coveted slice of real estate in the popular summertime vacation destination, each lineal pes of lakefront typically brings $10,000 and $17,000, according to local Realtors.
Later on the auction, The Inn shut down and the resort refunded deposits to guests who had made reservations for weddings or other big events.
The Inn property includes an 18-acre golf course and some farmland on the other side of Lakeshore Drive.
The resort has been operating nether a special use permit from the city of Okoboji since local parcels were rezoned twice in the 1970s.
Okoboji Metropolis Attorney Dave Stein declined this week to annotate on the future uses for the property, maxim, "Information technology would be inappropriate for me to offering an opinion at this fourth dimension," equally he works for the city council, which has not asked for an opinion.
Hjelm
The auction, conducted over 16 days in September, drew 10 bidders in online activity, Hjelm said. A 200-page appraisement report made available to potential buyers valued the seven parcels that make up the circuitous at $half dozen.7 meg. Dickinson County assessed the backdrop for tax purposes at $four.25 million.
The online portion of the sale was followed by additional behest over the phone.
Butch Parks, a well-known businessman whose holdings include marinas on East and West Lake Okoboji, was considered a potential candidate to buy the resort, only has said he did non make a bid.
At age 11, Parks started working as a busboy at The Inn the night in 1956 that vocaliser Marilyn Maye opened at The Lakeview Room.
In a recent interview from New York, where she had just appeared for two nights at the Iridium jazz society, Maye said she was "devastated" when she heard The Inn may non reopen under new ownership.
"Nosotros had a wonderful time in The Lakeview Room. In that location are a lot of my notes -- a lot of my music -- in those walls. The Inn is a landmark for Okoboji -- a tradition," she said.
Maye says she got to personally become acquainted with the families she performed for. "I know the grandparents, parents, kids and now their children -- many whom accept come upwards on phase with me. Not only did I have a skillful professional life at The Inn, I had a fabulous personal life in that location, too, spending many hours in the homes of the families that partied at The Inn -- some of whom also traveled all over the state to hear me sing in places like New York, California and Florida," she said.
Chocolate-brown, The Inn's former sales manager, has been coming to Okoboji since he was a child in Colorado. He remained at The Inn until this week, checking for phone letters and to render calls on his ain time.
Brown, who said he has had no advice with the heir-apparent or agents, said he volition miss working with the many families and groups that returned to The Inn for decades. That made canceling 2018 reservations the most hard part of his job.
"It was merely so sad. Some of those families had been coming to The Inn every summer for threescore or 70 years," Brown said. "They told me stories about their parents being married at The Inn. It took weeks to become everybody called. But I loved hearing the stories. There'southward so much history for those families. The Inn was a big part of their lives."
Long-time Inn managing director Brad Tifft, who worked for several owners earlier leaving the resort in 2012, echoed Brownish's thoughts a day after they got together with a couple dozen other erstwhile employees for a potluck before this month.
Tifft first worked at The Inn while in high school in the 1980s, and and so returned in 1999.
"It was all nearly the people -- the people we worked with, and the guests," he said. "Nearly of the staff worked there for many years. They were good people. And we didn't have much turnover... The guests were two, three and iv generations with The Inn -- families that had been coming for 30, twoscore and 50 years."
Tifft said the loss of The Inn would hurt tourism in the region.
"What's also going to be missed are those summer weekends when the motels are all sold out. Where will all those people who were going to The Inn all going to go at present?" he asked. "We had 155 rooms. That's 400 or 500 fewer people enjoying Okoboji every summer weekend."
Source: https://siouxcityjournal.com/news/local/update-new-owners-dont-plan-to-reopen-the-inn-at-okoboji-as-a-resort/article_cdcb607e-8be8-5d88-ac6f-d5701dd76246.html
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