Economy Inn is known as a hot spot for crack cocaine and hideous prostitutes, it’s being sold for $4 million and torn down. Just throw the whole West Sugar Creek away!!
On April 10, 2023 the Charlotte City Council Board voted to buy the Economy Inn Motel and Budget Inn Motel located at 5350 Reagan Road Charlotte, NC for $4.2 million. Prostitution and drug activity along with other violent crimes has plagued the motel and the area for years.
City Council voted to buy the motel in a 6-3 vote. Leaders in the city of Charlotte have noticed crime in the area for years, hence a plan was developed to buy property at troubled motels and demolish them. In 2022 a woman was found dead at the Economy Inn inside her room.
Retail and affordable housing are planned to be built at the motel site once demolition is complete.
The city plans to buy other motels in the West Sugar area too in separate deals, with the same demolition strategy. There are many motels in the area that are prostitution and cocaine riddled.
Daymon Holley was murdered near West Sugar Creek in 2022.
The council voted 6-3 in Monday night’s meeting, with Lawana Mayfield, Braxton Winston and Ed Driggs voting no. Several city leaders referred to the West Sugar Creek area as low income socioeconomic areas.
28-year-old Rahmiek Brown was murdered on Labor Day at a Shell gas station on West Sugar Creek.
The crime rate is high due to the fact the motels are next to Interstate 85. Criminals from out of town and in town will come to the area to sell crack cocaine, fentanyl, and methamphetamine.
Pimps will come to the area to drop off women for prostitution and sexual services on the street. Some of the criminals make enough money via drug sales or prostitution and then leave the area.
But there are some criminals that stay in the area for years. Sex trafficking and drug sales in the area are normal to the people that see it everyday.
The motels sit on 4.3 acres. 40 units are used for extended stay guests; four of the 10 of such residents are building employees.
The Economy Inn is owned by Rising Tides LLC, and Budget Stay by Mara Enterprises; they’re valued at a combined $3.1 million per the 2023 revaluation.
Mayor Vi Lyles said that the acquisition is the first step to right a wrong the city made decades before, the mayor says:
“Corridors of opportunity come from because we didn’t invest in them the 1970s. This is a down payment for the things we didn’t do in the 1970s. It’s not ok. There might be a little bit of difficulty, but we got to start somewhere. It starts with this vote tonight.”
The Crises Assistance Ministry is expected to help residents at the motels that are being displaced. A demolition date has not been scheduled yet. No residents have made any legal challenges to the motel sale. A judge’s order is the only thing that can stop the motel demolition.
