Regis Hotel tenants making last stand for their home's preservation

SALT LAKE CITY — William Bogel watched his fiancee die and life begin to slip away.

Richard Caldwell found himself dealing with a midlife crisis.

When they hit rock bottom, the Regis Hotel was their last hope.

Now the men, two of about two dozen still living in the rundown State Street motel, are making a last stand for the place they call home.

"People don't know the thousands of individuals who have lived here and have created a community," said Tim Funk of the Crossroads Urban Center. "The city is killing that community."

The Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency has served eviction notices to the remaining tenants at 253 S. State, as officials move forward with plans to demolish and renovate a pair of beleaguered hotels there.

While RDA leaders have offered space to tenants at the newly remodeled Rio Grande Hotel on Broadway, the resistance from some has been fierce.

"I am surprised," said Alisia Wixom, the project manager at the Rio Grande. "I think there have been a lot of false rumors. Everyone who has come here has been surprised."

The 49-unit Rio Grande lies in stark contrast to the Regis in terms of cleanliness and accommodations, but residents said they do not want to give up the life and community they have built on State Street only to be swept away to the west.

"The ones that are left here, they're the long-term ones," Bogel said, as he played with Ginger, a dog that has become the hotel's unofficial mascot. "They've been here for years. They could go out and find an apartment, but they're comfortable here. They were safe here. It was home."

Dragging on a cigarette outside the building Monday, Caldwell called the RDA "the worst slumlords you've ever known."

"This place is coming apart. There are no ifs, ands or buts," he said. "We're being forced out 'cause they want to put condos in here, and they don't want what they assume is the riffraff here."

During a tour of the Rio Grande on Friday, RDA director D.J. Baxter said the Regis would need massive renovations that would require tenants to move out at some point.

Between the Rio Grande and last year's opening of the Palmer Court apartments, the city offers about 100 single-room occupancy units for about $80 a week.

City leaders are currently looking to add 50 units to that number.

"This is a type of housing that is greatly needed and undersupplied," said Councilman Luke Garrott, who serves as the RDA's chairman.

e-mail: afalk@desnews.com