Officials say investigation of hotel destroyed by fire is too expensive to pursue

Americas Best Value Inn, 515 McDonald Drive, is pictured Monday, Jan. 22, 2018, a week after fire destroyed the building.

Investigators ruled the cause of last week’s destructive hotel fire ‘undetermined’ without physically inspecting the interior of the burnt-out building.

And at this point, plans for an on-the-ground inspection that might answer how the fire started have been abandoned.

Stabilizing the large — and largely collapsed — three-story structure so investigators could safely enter on foot would require extensive excavation work, Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical Division Chief and Fire Marshal James King said Monday. Other portions of the investigation did not turn up clear evidence of arson, King said, so fire department leaders decided an excavation job of that magnitude was too expensive to justify the cost in this case.

“We always prefer to get inside and be able to corroborate any info that we’ve gotten through the interview process,” King said. “We just did not have a clear indication that there was any criminal activity involved with this … Because of that, there’s not a justification to keep moving forward.”

The city announced Friday afternoon that the cause of the Jan. 15 fire at Americas Best Value Inn, 515 McDonald Drive, was officially ruled undetermined.

King emphasized that the undetermined ruling is just that; with the information they have, investigators cannot confirm or rule out either arson or accident.

“As an undetermined fire, I cannot say it was accidental nor can I say that it was intentional,” King said.

King also emphasized that even if investigators physically inspected the structure, there’s still no guarantee they could conclude what started the fire or its specific point of origin.

“This was a structure that was significantly damaged by fire,” he said. “Not only was it structurally damaged by fire, the fire burned with enough intensity that the building collapsed. But also with the extreme cold and with the water, the building was loaded with water and became encased in ice.”

King said that if they had a strong suspicion of criminal activity, investigators “absolutely” would have pushed forward with excavation, probably with assistance from the insurance company.

Investigators can amend the undetermined ruling if new information comes to light, King said.

If the insurance company chooses to undertake excavating and stabilizing the structure in order to further inspect it for their own investigation, King said fire department investigators could join them.

“I’m confident that if anything were to change and they were to be made aware in any fashion that there was any impropriety whatsoever that they would notify us and work with us,” King said.

King said investigators had “extensive” contact with the property owner and that he had been “very agreeable” to work with.

King said the fire department relinquished control of the charred property back to the owner on Friday afternoon, and that the future of the property — now enclosed by a tall, chain-link fence — now rests with him and his insurance company.

King said the building is a total loss but that investigators had not yet calculated a dollar figure for the damages.

The building’s appraised value is $350,700, according to Douglas County property records. Including the land it sits on, it’s an $800,200 property.

The registered owner of the building and land is Jinal LLC, of the same address, according to property records.

Navin Patel is the registered owner of that entity, according to Kansas secretary of state filings.

The property used to be a Super 8, also owned by Patel, according to previous Journal-World reports.

In 2016, Patel, a Shawnee resident at that time, was convicted of attempted second-degree murder and criminal threat after stabbing his wife at the Super 8. Patel was not sentenced to prison but instead was ordered to complete programs to help him with mental health and alcohol problems.

The Journal-World did not locate the owner at the fire scene and, with his registered business’s address burnt down, has been unable to find contact information for him.

King said he did not have a formal estimate for the cost of excavation work. However, based on the size of equipment needed and the skill of operators required, such a job could cost in the ballpark of $25,000 or more for a contractor, plus fire department hours, he said.

It’s not unusual for fires to be ruled as having undetermined causes, King said. However, it’s rare that investigators aren’t able to do an on-the-ground inspection. Even in houses with burned-off roofs or other significant damage, they’re often still structurally sound enough to enter, King said.

But the hotel is a far larger scale than typical fires in Lawrence.

King recalled one example of a fire on a similar scale where investigators did an on-the-ground investigation — the Boardwalk Apartment fire of 2005, which killed three people and injured close to 20 others.

Federal, state and local agencies teamed up on the investigation, though there was a delay of several days before they were able to begin, King said. Resident Jason Rose later was convicted of arson and multiple counts of manslaughter.

“Any loss of property is worthy of investigation,” King said. “Certainly if there’s a loss of life it moves the importance of getting that determination, it moves it to a top priority.”