Judge approves county takeover of Grand Palace property

The Grand Palace has a new owner and a near-certain future: demolition.

County officials took over the former nightclub at 617 Brooks St. on Monday, when Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey Walker signed the Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority's eminent-domain order.

"We have access to the property," said County Commission President Kent Carper. "We intend to raze it and turn it into a parking lot as soon as is practicable."

Owner Hershel Layne won't contest the county's takeover but will demand to be paid more than the $145,000 that the county has proposed as a fair-market value, said Layne's lawyer, Mike Clifford.

"We expected it," said Clifford, a former county prosecutor, of the eminent-domain order's approval. He said he would file papers with the court this week petitioning for a higher price, but he wouldn't disclose the price.

"It will be considerably more than the county appraisal," he said.

The building's location across Brooks Street from the new Appalachian Power Park is not given enough weight in the county's appraisal, Clifford maintains.

The property is currently taxed at an assessed value of $164,300.

Both Carper and Joe Lynch, the ambulance authority's executive director, said the county was still willing to negotiate a price with Layne, but he has not responded to their requests to negotiate.

"Our strong preference is to work this out," Carper said. "But if they want to litigate, we'll litigate."

In the meantime, the authority has already started working on a contract with West Virginia Demolition of Charleston to tear down the roughly 8,000-square-foot building, Lynch said.

The wreckers will have to wait at least 10 days from Monday to let state and federal environmental protection regulators survey the property for asbestos and other environmental hazards, Lynch said. The demolition will follow after that as soon as the contractors can arrange for it, he said.

For now, the ambulance authority will cordon off the building with caution tape and assign employees to guard it day and night, Lynch said. A private security firm may also be hired to keep watch, he said.

The authority is most worried about people gaining entry to the building, which is in dangerous disrepair, Lynch said. Fire is another risk, he said.

"We're deeply concerned that it's a public safety issue," he said.

For decades, the Palace was Charleston's biggest gay bar. Layne has said he closed it about one and a half years ago. But Charleston Mayor Danny Jones, who supports the property's demolition, said it has been closed since before he became mayor three years ago.

Layne announced in June that he was running for mayor of Charleston next year.

The authority, which occupies buildings to either side of the Palace, would used the property for parking and storage, according to its eminent-domain petition.

If Layne and the county can't agree on a price, the judge would convene a five-member condemnation committee, made up of real estate and law experts, which would hold a hearing and then settle on a price, said eminent-domain lawyer James Kauffelt of Kauffelt & Kauffelt in Charleston.

If either party rejected that figure, a jury trial would be called to decide on a price, Kauffelt said.