Spa waits for its Prince Charming/ Blighted building could be

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), May 7, 2003 | by TOM RAGAN

MANITOU SPRINGS - Nowhere in Manitou is there anything so treasured yet so vilified. The Historic Manitou Spa was built in 1918 and is registered with the National Register of Historic Places.

It has a plaque on the outside to prove it.

If the three-story building isn't sold, however, and relatively soon, the spa building could become history.

The patience of the Manitou Springs City Council is wearing thin.

The building has been condemned and abandoned for nearly four years, the result of flood damage and fire-code violations.

Countless squatters have taken up residence in its depths, Manitou Springs police say.

Intravenous needles have been found in the building that in the 1920s was a hotel and mineral springs bathhouse.

In what was considered a final-straw action in early April, the City Council unanimously agreed to determine the demolition costs and how to pay them, said Fred Burmont, Manitou's city manager.

"But if a developer comes along and has the financial resources and a viable plan, City Council members will obviously reconsider," Burmont said. "They're not dead set on demolishing the building. They just want something done with it - one way or the other."

Owner Walt Sebring is considering selling the building for $1.5 million.

It's been appraised at $2.2 million, but it would take $2 million to renovate it and turn it into a profitable business, he said.

"I'd come back and take on the project myself," said Sebring, 58, who lives in Cedar Ridge, 50 miles east of Grand Junction. "But I've had three heart attacks in the last year, and those days are over."

From 1984 through 1990, Sebring owned the spa building, which housed 14 apartments, several gift shops, a massage therapy school, a Christian ministry, a bathhouse and the Brookside Terrace restaurant.

The building then passed through several owners, none of whom could turn a profit. Sebring, who "acted as the bank" for the sales, had to foreclose on the building twice - in 2000 and 2001.

The mineral springs a mile below ground still bubble up inside the spa's abandoned lobby.

"The building has great potential," said Manitou Mayor Marcy Morrison, who would love to have it fixed up.

"But the problem is nobody has come forward with a plan as of yet. And the more that building sits in the downtown, the more it becomes a blight on our otherwise lovely community."

Last month, Sebring boarded up the windows squatters have been crawling through in the past six months and shored up the outside fence.

"Hopefully, the next time I'm back in town, it will be for a better reason," he said.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 476-1661 or tragan@gazette.com