Urinal or icon? Battle over Cape Town hotel
● One of the owners of the Ritz Hotel in Cape Town says he cannot wait for his problem tenant to get off the property.
But Ritz Hotel Management, which has paid no rent since March 2017 and was ordered by the court to vacate the property this month, says it is going nowhere.
Businessman Nicky van der Walt and his wife LeeAnn Liebenberg announced the Sea Point landmark’s multimillion-rand renovation in October 2016 after they took over the property from Jarren Hurwitz’s previous tenants.
But 19 months later‚ the management company is fighting to hold on to the 20-storey building, which is topped by a revolving restaurant. Van der Walt left the company in March.
The management company said it was planning to invest R50-million on top of the R90-million it said it had already spent on renovations.
The company and a former tenant borrowed R90million for upgrades from Hurwitz through a Nedbank bond on the property.
Judge Patrick Gamble ordered on May 28 that the management company vacate the premises on June 22, saying the landlord’s cancellation of the lease agreement was valid.
The company, which owes rent of R13-million, this week blamed Hurwitz for withholding cash for renovations.
Ritz Hotel Management said the landlord did not hand over the money on time, delaying the hotel’s reopening and losing revenue in the 2016 festive season.
The hotel finally opened in December and there had been “overwhelmingly positive feedback”, said general manager Johann du Plessis.
“Bookings are looking very promising for the 201819 summer season and beyond.”
Despite the hotel’s apparent success, the management company has refused to pay rent until the owners pay damages to it for not delivering the agreed R30-million in time — even though no time and date was officially agreed on.
Gamble said the management company’s litigation displayed “chutzpah of the first order”.
Hurwitz, who has also brought a court application for the liquidation of the management company, said he had already received interest in the property from potential replacement tenants.
“A lot of people have told us: ‘Well, why don’t you just sell it?’ We’re made of tougher mettle than that. [We want to] turn it into something positive once we get these okes out the way,” he said.
“It’s just a small chapter of negativity in hopefully a long story of an iconic building.”
Initially, he said, the management company appeared “charismatic”. But when things turned sour, “we did a little bit of research on them for 10 minutes. We kind of realised that these aren’t the type of operators we’d like to associate ourselves with. These aren’t the type of people we’d like to be in business with,” said Hurwitz.
“And it wasn’t going to be a brand. We wanted a brand, not just some fly-by-night operation.”
Ritz Hotel Management denied the allegations against it and said “by the landlord’s own admission” the hotel had been colloquially known as “the urinal of Cape Town” before the company took it over.
It has sought leave to appeal against Gamble’s judgment.