CHARLESTON, W.Va.–Charleston Mayor Danny Jones said that he isn’t worried about Charleston’s Laidley Tower recently being placed in receivership.
Laidley is the city’s tallest and most prominent building, but despite recent issues, Jones is not concerned that anything will happen to it.
“I’m really not concerned about it,” Jones said. “It’ll be redone, it’ll be restructured, and it may even go through a bankruptcy. But the building is not going anywhere and it’ll eventually fill up with tenants.”
Jones did feel that getting some new blood living in the building would help, especially since Laidley lost Patriot Coal Company as a tenant.
“What needs to happen is they need to find some big tenants,” he said. “We’re constantly trying to recruit people to come here. They lost Patriot (Coal Company) which hurt them.”
An order was signed April 1 to place the building in the control of Wells Fargo Bank. Colliers International, a Charlotte, N.C. based company, was appointed as the receiver. Now tenants will send rent payments to Colliers.
Jones said that city office buildings often go through both successful times and periods of downturn.
“The office space in this city goes through waves. And right now Laidley Tower has lost tenants, and so they’re not making payments to the owners of the building,” he said.