From the Daily News:Saleish Gandhi has spent five years trying to build an hourly rate motel in Springfield Gardens that opponents say would attract crime and sleaze to a spot near a high school.
Now he wants to sell the property, sources told the Daily News Wednesday.
"He said it was too much of a headache," according to a person close to the matter. "It wasn't worth it to him."
Gandhi has faced fierce opposition from locals since he started construction on the hotel in 2005. Residents staged triweekly protests at the site on North Conduit Ave. They even took their protests on the road, joining City Councilman James Sanders (D-Laurelton) outside Gandhi's home in Great Neck, L.I., in 2008.
Sanders said he's been talking with Gandhi about getting him to possibly donate the property as a community center for the very residents who pestered him.
"If he donates the land to the community, we'll name it the Gandhi Center," said Sanders.
But if he instead sells it to the city, he will "have to be flexible with his price and I will have to be a contortionist to squeeze money from the city," Sanders said.
Sanders wouldn't comment on Gandhi's asking price, but sources said it is around $4 million, more than double what Gandhi paid for it.
Gandhi did not reply to repeated requests for comment. He has been tied to similar hourly rate hotels in Long Island City, Jamaica, Brooklyn and Huntington, L.I.
7 comments:
Maybe they should worry more about crime and sleaze IN the High School. I am no proponent of whore motels, but this is a scapegoat for much deeper problems, in the HS and in the neighborhood.
there is NOTHING wrong with Springfield Gardens racist creep.
NO MOTEL!!!!
How where they able to stop ONE hotel, and Dutch Kills is saddled with FOURTEEN ?!?
That is easy.
The politicans ignored DK.
The press ignored DK.
Even other allies in community preservation ignored DK.
There is a pecking order in the city, and as long as anyone that might work with you or helps you is bought off with ice cream money, you are in the dark and have no hope for progress.
Look at the millstones, for example.
Gandhi didn't pay off Sanders. Sanders sicced the community activists on him
"there is NOTHING wrong with Springfield Gardens racist creep."
I am sure preventing the construction of a hotel will cure all of your community's woes. It is such a peaceful and safe place now.... in the daylight.
Anyone see Simeon of HDC and his loooong essay on Lena Horne and southeast Queens?
my my my
Could we have seen something like that for St Saviours or the millstones?
Charges of racism in preservation does sting, no?
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