Craig Hotel closing Craig Hotel closing (June 11, 2004)

One of few low-income housing options in Palo Alto

by Bill D'Agostino

The Craig Hotel, one of the few remaining places for people of limited means and fixed incomes to afford to stay in Palo Alto, is closing.

According to the front desk manager, the owner of the property is planning to sell it.

The news sparked immediate concern from city officials and housing advocates, who vowed to try to save the vital piece of housing, located at 164 Hamilton Ave.

"That's sad news for low-income people in Palo Alto," said Jim Burklo, a Presbyterian minister and the former director of Urban Ministry, which provides aid to local homeless. "It's a very important housing resource in the community."

The city needs to "explore some kind of rescue plan," Councilwoman Judy Kleinberg said.

The city's official housing policy sets a priority to "encourage the preservation" of such "short-term or transitional housing," known as "single-room occupancy hotels."

Calls to the hotel's property manager and the owner of the land were not returned by the Weekly's Thursday deadline. Speculation was high among current and former residents that the owners planned to renovate it into upscale apartments.

A similar path transformed the Cardinal Hotel in the 1990s from a downtrodden hotel to upscale lodging for tourists.

The Craig Hotel's 63 rooms are small and shoddy (one former resident compared it to "a jail cell"), but the weekly rates of $176 are extremely low by Palo Alto standards. Many hotels in Palo Alto cost that much per day, and apartment rents average more than $1,500 a month.

Most of the rooms at the Craig don't have a bathroom attached. There is a community kitchen and the hotel's business card advertises that the premise has a "color TV."

Important to those on fixed incomes, there is no deposit required to live at the Craig. "A lot of these folks can't rub enough nickels together to get a down payment," Burklo said.

Former residents having lunch at a nearby food kitchen, run by Urban Ministry, bemoaned the size of the units, but appreciated their value.

"I stayed there for about a year 'cause I was working a job and needed a place to live, and that was the cheapest place I could find," said Craig Gonzales. "People are going to have to find another place to go."

As the Craig's regulars moved out this week, another Palo Alto hotel for low-income residents was seeing increased business.

"We are booming," said the manager of the Palo Alto Hotel, who refused to give his name. The manager said the low-income hotel has had to turn away people hoping to stay there some nights. "We are almost filled full every night."

The Craig Hotel was opened in the summer of 1963, according to newspaper articles dug up from the Palo Alto Historical Associations' archives by Beth Bunnenberg.

The property's then-owner, San Jose hotel mogul E.J. Maas, built the complex for travelers, professors, students, and some "transients," Bunnenberg said. The rates at the time ranged from $3.50 to $6 a day. It was the first downtown hotel built in Palo Alto in 32 years.

In recent years, the Craig Hotel's walls have occasionally been the backdrop to brutal and sad crimes. Two dead bodies were found in rooms in the late 1990s. A husband held his wife of two weeks hostage in a room all day in January 2001. Three years later, Palo Alto police arrested four suspects in the hotel for allegedly being part of an "identity theft ring."

News about the possible closing of the nearby Barker Hotel in the late 1980s propelled the Palo Alto Housing Corporation to raise $1.9 million to purchase the property and indefinitely maintain the similarly cheap hotel as low-income housing.

"It was a happy ending, which I would certainly hope happens in this case," Burklo said.

Senior Staff Writer Don Kazak and Intern Steven Shih contributed to this report. Staff writer Bill D'Agostino can be e-mailed at bdagostino@paweekly.com.

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