Records show city workers should have known about extra hotel floors

Tuesday, April 7, 1998 | 12:50 p.m.

While Holloway maintained Monday that his inspectors were unaware of the top two floors, records indicated that city workers should have known.

Imperial Palace regularly filed reports with the city on details on construction on the top floors. City inspectors visited Imperial Palace regularly while the floors were under construction, according to records from the city's Building Department.

City councilman Jim Compton said after a meeting with Holloway that he does not know how inspectors could have missed the work.

"It wasn't like they put a tent over the building and worked only on weekends," he said. "The city should have known and issued a stop work order."

Holloway wants to punish Imperial Palace for building 32 floors, and not just 30 floors as stated in the original plans. He wants to deny Imperial Palace an occupancy permit for the two floors, which would keep them empty. Imperial Palace started the floors without a building permit.

Compton said if the city was aware of the work well before it tried to act against Imperial Palace, it could lose a court challenge.

Imperial Palace owner Ralph Englestad plans to sue if he is not allowed to open the top floors.

From August, when it started on the floors, until December, when it was ordered to stop, Imperial Palace filed construction reports that repeatedly refer to work on the top floors, according to the records reviewed by The Sun Herald newspaper of Biloxi.

While the illegal work was performed for three months, four inspectors visited Imperial Palace a total of 88 times, the newspaper reported.

Holloway's position might also have been weakened because the Air Force reported it is no longer concerned about the hotel's affect on flight training at the base.

"Our position is that once we raised the flight minimums, Imperial Palace was no longer an issue," said Maj. John Cherry. "We don't want to be used as leverage for litigation against Imperial Palace."