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The Harlan County Fiscal Court discussed the possible paths forward regarding the Benham Schoolhouse Inn during the court’s regular August meeting. The court is considering multiple options for the future operation of the facility.
Harlan County Judge-Executive Dan Mosley outlined the situation for the magistrate’s consideration.
“The RFP opening for the operations and management of the Benham Inn occurred on Monday, Aug. 19,” Mosley said. “There were no proposals submitted for the second time that we’ve advertised this particular facility.”
Mosley pointed out a lease had been in place for the operation of the Inn since 2016.
“(The Inn) has been operated by Appalachian Hospitality Group since July of 2016,” Mosley said.
Mosley told the magistrates there are multiple options open to them concerning the facility.
“There are an abundance of options to consider,” Mosley said. “Obviously, when you don’t receive any proposals there are things we must look at, I’m going to highlight some of those.”
According to Mosley, those options include readvertising for a third time with a wider distribution, sell the property, extend the holdover agreement with the current operator, renegotiate with the existing operator, for the county to run the facility, or for the Benham Schoolhouse Inn to close.
“(Closing the facility) is not an option on my list as far as what I would be willing to allow to happen, but ultimately when you have no proposals submitted…that has to be on the table,” Mosley said.
Magistrate Paul Browning pointed out he had recently communicated with two entities interested in the facility but was informed they had not been able to determine if operating the facility would be a profitable venture.
“Revenue was too much of a question mark,” Browning said. “They looked at market analysis, they looked at other similar situations, had conversations with others…it’s hard to gauge that without just diving into it…they felt the reward was very possibly there, but the initial risk of it was larger than they were willing to go ahead with.”
Following some further discussion, the court passed a pair of motions concerning the Inn.
“The first thing I’m going to do is ask for a motion to advertise a modified RFP for the operations and management of the Benham Schoolhouse Inn,” Mosley said. “The modified RFP will be different than the first two that ran…and expand our advertising of the RFP to a state audience.”
Browning made the motion, seconded by Magistrate James Howard. The motion was unanimously passed.
A second motion was made to authorize the Judge-Executive to negotiate with the existing lessee related to continuing operations for a period of time.
Magistrate Jim Roddy made the motion, seconded by Browning. The motion passed with no opposition.