Photo by Niamh Coomey The condemned McLure Hotel sits empty on a sunny day in April.

WHEELING — The future of the condemned McLure Hotel faces further uncertainty after prospective buyer Josef France backed out of the $6 million sale.

At a court hearing Wednesday, Judge Jeffrey Miller and McLure owner Frances Garey’s lawyer discussed the failed sale and the status of efforts to get the hotel, which was condemned by the city in November, back up to code.

At Garey’s first hearing on the condemnation in December, she and France, a property flipper from Arkansas, announced that they had agreed on a price for the building and an early April closing date. France reportedly backed out of the deal due to financial reasons.

According to Garey’s Charleston-based lawyer Drew Holbrook, who phoned in to Wednesday’s hearing, Garey has two new potential buyers from New Jersey that have recently toured the hotel. Garey herself was not present at Wednesday’s hearing.

According to Holbrook, Garey has also been contracting out maintenance work on the property. Workers have reportedly cleaned up and removed mold from the walls and from the hotel’s main kitchen, removed blockages in the stairwells and gotten the sprinkler system back up to code.

Garey had also told Holbrook that two out of four of the building’s defunct elevators are back to working conditions and up to code, however the city has not verified this, according to Miller.

Miller also raised concern with the amount of water being used in the supposedly mostly empty building. When the hotel was condemned, a number of residents of the apartment section of the building had to vacate their units on short notice and were forced to find alternative places to stay.

Per the December hearing, only two individuals are allowed to stay in the hotel while maintenance is ongoing and as the condemnation stands. However, the building reportedly used around 47,000 gallons of water in one month, Miller said.

While some of this could be attributed to cleaning, Miller said the water usage is still “extremely excessive if only two people are there.” He asked that Holbrook remind Garey of the two-person limit and warned that the city could take further action if the limit is not honored.

Miller inquired whether Garey would keep the property and reopen as a hotel if she is able to get it back up to code. Holbrook said Garey will continue with the necessary maintenance work while searching for a buyer.

Holbrook said he did not receive an explanation on why prospective buyer France was unable to go through with the sale other than that “financing couldn’t be pushed through.”

According to Holbrook, Garey has been reaching out to others in her “community of investors” and being upfront about the status of the building and condemnation, knowing that “any reasonable buyer will come to the city” to see the status of the hotel first-hand.

Miller called for another city inspection of the hotel to verify the status of maintenance work. He scheduled another court hearing on June 11 and requested that Garey be present in person.

It is Garey’s responsibility to initiate contact with the city to schedule the next inspection.