Hotel Sabine has been sitting empty at 600 Procter Street in Port Arthur for almost 40 years. The property was once considered prosperous in the years following its 1929 opening. As the decades passed, though, it slowly fell into disrepair. In 1992, Port Arthur took ownership of the hotel with the hopes of revitalizing it, but it’s taken until now to begin the process of bringing that dream to fruition.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted the city $2.46 million to put toward the Hotel Sabine’s complete overhaul. Funds will first be used to safely remove hazardous materials on site, like lead-based paint and asbestos, before then being allotted to a complete redevelopment project.
Ron Burton, Port Arthur’s City Manager, said in a statement, “This grant will allow us to address environmental concerns at the former Hotel Sabine, improve public safety and position this historic property for future redevelopment. Projects like this are critical to our ongoing efforts to revitalize our community and attract new opportunities for growth.”
When originally applying for the EPA grant, the city indicated it would like to turn the building into a mixed-use space. A proposal for the funding said, in part, “By cleaning up this historic, 10-story Hotel Sabine property with EPA Grant funds as an enticement for beneficial redevelopment, the city will be able to provide jobs, office and retail space for businesses, and affordable and student housing to a community greatly in need of all those things.”
Kelvin Solco, CEO of Solco Group LLC—a consulting firm that helped Port Arthur acquire the EPA grant—previously told KBMT, “Restoring this building, we believe, would restore or regenerate growth here in downtown Port Arthur, and then bring the city back to a semblance of its historical significance.”
Hotel Sabine’s history
Hotel Sabine was built in 1929 and originally opened under a different name, the Vaughn Hotel. It then adopted its new moniker in the 1930s, a period in which the Renaissance Revival-styled property was known for its luxurious offerings. This prosperity continued up until the 1970s. At that time, Hotel Sabine was converted into apartments instead, though those were short-lived.
By the end of the 1980s, the property had been completely shuttered. It has since been added to the National Register of Historic Places due to the significance of its cultural and financial contributions to downtown Port Arthur’s Historic District while it was still operational.
As previously mentioned, it came under city ownership in 1992, with many believing it may serve a greater, though more unconventional, purpose. There were talks of demolishing the building for a Hollywood movie, or to petition it as the subject of a ghost-hunting investigation.
Neither of those things happened, obviously, but it’s easy to see why exploring the abandoned halls of Hotel Sabine would make for compelling content. The property’s interior is crumbling and overrun with debris, and while no one has ever reportedly encountered anything supernatural there, rumors of it being haunted persist among locals.
Those notions likely have less to do with actual spectral encounters and more to do with the fact that the hotel hasn’t welcomed visitors in decades. It has been a sad reminder of what once was, but with the help of this EPA grant, Port Arthur is hoping to turn that sorrow into pride instead.
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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