City Looking For Absentee Owner Of Eastside Eyesore

By ABC-7 Reporter Martin Bartlett

EL PASO, Texas – The city has been trying for weeks to clean-up the gutted, graffiti-ridden hull of an old Howard Johnson Motel on Gateway West Blvd near Hawkins, officials told ABC-7.

The city streets department can only clean-up graffiti if they can get the eyesore’s owners to cooperate.

“We’re pretty well familiar with the property,” said Fred Pacheco, head of the city’s graffiti removal program. “We know it’s been abandoned for a while now. I’d be trespassing, i need his permission to go into a site such as this.”

The city’s been trying since April to get a hold of the property’s owner, Pacheco said.

Under city rules, until they do, there’s nothing the city can do about the eyesore.

“It’s going become a magnet for other people to spray paint even more on the building,” Pacheco said.

According to city tax rolls, the property is owned by a company called Hawkins Motor Lodge of El Paso

We couldn’t get in touch with anybody their either.

So for now, a property valued at more than $2 million, at a high traffic-corner, will continue to a $2 million eyesore.

To report graffiti around El Paso, click here.