Midwest Hotel on Main Street sold

• Re/Max Commercial Solutions
• The Midwest Hotel finally has a new owner.

The Midwest Hotel, a five-story slab of blight at the intersection of 20th Street and Main, has been sold. Re/Max Commercial Solutions real-estate broker Gibson Kerr says the building was sold Wednesday in a foreclosure auction on the Jackson County Courthouse steps.

“Great American Bank is now the proud owner,” he says. “They were the only one who bid on the whole thing.”

He did not know the sale price.

The building has long been an ugly spot for the Crossroads District. The hotel, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, has stood vacant for several years. In the early aughts, the hotel was a magnet for drug crime and prostitution. (For a 2003 Pitch story, writer Casey Logan spent a harrowing week in the hotel, experiencing its full awfulness.)

The building’s saga has gone on so long, Kerr can’t even remember exactly how long he’s been trying to sell it.