Door County’s Fish Creek Motel Halts Construction

CORRECTION: The entire Fish Creek Motel is not closed for business, as the article below states. Motel management says a portion of the motel is not part of the renovations and is open for business, While 16 rooms will not be. We regret the error.

An old motel in a prime Door County location was showing its age, and its out-of-town owner decided it was time for a change. In Door County, this is often the recipe for a condominium development proposal and public outcry.

But James Schneider, owner of the Fish Creek Motel in downtown Fish Creek, decided to remodel the 50 year-old establishment, combining its 16 small rooms into eight roomier transient units.

This was a rare victory for Fish Creek lovers who’ve been disheartened in recent years by several, highly-visible, failed condominium developments in the heart of downtown. But as one might have anticipated, there was a hiccup, and for the second consecutive summer the Fish Creek Motel will sit empty.

Bob Martin has owned the Cedar Court Inn for 34 years and has run the Fish Creek Motel for Schneider for the past 11. He said it dates to the 1950s and was “pretty run down” by the time the decision was made to renovate.

Though needing work, the motel is an example of the kind of transient lodging that boosts business for its neighbors. Standing only a few steps from one of the county’s most high profile corners with shopping, coffee shops, popular bars and restaurants, the motel usually plays host to 40 or more guests nightly in July and August who spill into neighboring businesses.

But as the days warmed in June and sidewalks began to fill, the motel stood draped only in a shroud of plastic and Tyvec, awaiting the next turns in the slow-starting wheels of bureaucracy, much to Martin’s chagrin.

“The spirit of the project was preservation,” Martin said. “We wanted to retain the basic motel but in a more modern, functional way. But something went awry in the process.”

Jack Brauer, the Zoning Administrator for the Door County Planning Department who is handling the case, said the original project approval was for a relatively basic remodel.

“They were authorized to pick up and move the building to repair the foundation, then put it back and repair the roof,” Brauer explained.

Gibraltar Town Board President Merrell Runquist said the proposal received enthusiastic support from the community and officials.

“The town supported the project because it would keep transient lodging in the heart of Fish Creek,” he said.

But in the course of work the crew doing the job found the walls were rotting and determined they’d have to be replaced.

Martin said that’s where the work took a wrong turn. The walls were “to be left as is,” he said, a fact made very clear to the builders before work began. Martin said he had stressed to Schneider to go with local workmen whom were familiar with the town’s rules and warned him how strict they are.

“This is Fish Creek,” he explained. “Where people literally come by at night with cameras and tape measures when work is being done.”

But Schneider, who couldn’t be reached for comment, went with a Green Bay crew he was familiar with, and, taking what they thought was the logical next step, they began replacing the walls of the motel without notifying the town or the county planning department. Replacing the walls altered the scope of the project significantly in the eyes of the zoning code.

“By removing the outer walls they turned the project from a remodel into substantially new construction,” Runquist said.

That change required a new round of variances, permits, and conditional use approval Schneider didn’t have. So when the County Planning Department learned of the alteration in October of 2007 they issued a cease and desist order on the project, stopping work until the proper approvals were granted, which is not a rapid-fire process.

Before work could recommence, Schneider would have to get a number of variances from the town – a months-long process that goes through the Plan Commission, to the Town Board, and finally to the County Board of Adjustment for approval.

The change in the work also pushed the project into the conditional use realm, requiring another round of approvals from the Plan Commission, the town, and then the Door County Resource Planning Commission. In May, the conditional use permit was finally approved and issued for the project, but Schneider must provide new plans for approval, and Martin said the process will probably drag through the summer.

“My guess is it will be a couple more months before it gets going again, at best,” he said.

Though he conceded the delay is the result of the builders not following the correct procedure, he lamented the affect the process will have beyond shutting down the motel.

“It’s certainly hurting employees down there who don’t have as much work this summer,” he said. “The season is lost.”

Martin estimated the closing has cost the equivalent of two full-time and two part-time positions.

The loss of income, jobs, and money spent at nearby businesses begs the question of whether there is a way to fast-track permitting in cases like this, where the economic impact spills across a community. Brauer and Runquist said they know of none.

“I don’t know that there’s a whole lot speedier way through it,” said Brauer, whose file on the case is a couple inches thick. “I suspect if they’d have done a more thorough inspection of the building at the beginning this could have been avoided. It’s an unfortunate situation.”

Martin described transient lodging as “the backbone of the local economy.”

If that’s the case, the county’s economy may be slouching, as the Fish Creek Motel is not the only lodging off the books this summer. The Holiday Motel (18 units) in Sturgeon Bay has been bogged down in insurance company hassles for months, delaying its much-anticipated re-opening. Helm’s Four Seasons (40 units) in Sister Bay was torn down to make room for an expanded village beach, and Leathem Smith Lodge (32 units) closed this year.

In the span of one year that’s a total of 106 units off the market, including one in Fish Creek still sitting in limbo.