Council to mull eminent domain for Hotel of Terror 

The city of Springfield is making ready to declare eminent domain in order to obtain the Hotel of Terror, officials with the municipality said at a media briefing this morning. 

As a component of the city’s Renew Jordan Creek project, the plan is to demolish the structure, a Halloween seasonal scare attraction at 334 N. Main Ave., and move ahead with a bridge replacement project on Main Avenue where it crosses Jordan Creek in downtown Springfield. 

Eminent domain is a strategy the city attempted in 2023 before receiving a successful referendum petition by Hotel of Terror owner Sterling Mathis to take the issue to city residents for a vote. In that instance, council repealed its declaration before a citywide vote could take place.  

At the next meeting of City Council on Nov. 17, the agenda is expected to call for members to consider a bill to condemn the Hotel of Terror property. It is the start of a two-meeting process, with a public hearing on Nov. 17 and a vote at the subsequent meeting. 

City officials explained next steps at the media briefing today. 

At issue, according to Brett Foster, assistant director of public works, is the Main Avenue bridge that abuts Hotel of Terror cannot be replaced without demolishing the haunted hotel attraction. 

Foster said the bridge has a rating of 2 in the National Bridge Inventory, an evaluation system for bridges with public roads passing over them. A rating of 2 on a scale that ranges 0-9 is in a condition of imminent failure, according to the NBI explanation.  

The score indicates “advanced deterioration of primary structural elements,” the NBI scale states. It adds, “Fatigue cracks in steel or shear cracks in concrete may be present or scour may have removed structural support. Unless closely monitored it may be necessary to close the bridge until corrective action is taken.” 

Mayor Jeff Schrag said council’s continuing goal is to stay ahead of issues concerning safety and infrastructure. 

“It is our intention to proactively take care of this issue before it becomes a critical safety problem,” Schrag said. 

Reached by text during the briefing, Mathis, the Hotel of Terror owner, expressed surprise. 

“We are not even in town,” he said, adding he left the issue in his attorney’s hands with instructions to set up a meeting. 

Cora Scott, the city’s director of public information and civic engagement, said the city’s last offer to Mathis was $2 million, and Mathis countered with a figure that was “significantly higher.”  

Schrag added the last counteroffer from the property owner was roughly six times the appraised value of the real estate and its contents.  

“We’ve gone out of our way to be fair to the owner,” he said. 

Schrag described a negotiation cycle that began with an appraisal followed by a formal proposal to the owner from the city. The owner informally responded with counteroffer suggestions, the mayor said, and the city reconsidered before submitting another formal proposal. 

“The owner would then recounter at an even higher price,” Schrag said. “This happened more than once.” 

In spring 2025, he said, the city asked the owner to make a final formal proposal. 

“At this point, I should note that the last counteroffer from the owner that was accepted by the city was for about six times the amount of the appraisal of the real estate and contents,” Schrag said. “The reason the city was willing to go that high is to also accommodate or cover the costs of relocation and then the reestablishment of the business.” 

He added the city also has to be a good steward of taxpayer funds. 

“We basically have been on hold waiting for the owner to make this formal proposal, and we’ve also been consciously waiting until the end of the Halloween season to be fair to the owner and the business,” Schrag said. “During this entire time, the bridge continues to deteriorate.” 

Schrag said that he became aware of a formal counteroffer from the owner this morning, but it is far above previous formal offers. He said he anticipates council will vote in favor of condemnation. 

In past Springfield Business Journal reporting, Mathis led a reporter and photographer through the attraction and showed off an array of handmade features – sculptural elements built into the former hotel building to frighten visitors to the haunted attraction. To Mathis, these elements are irreplaceable, built by hand by members of his family since the attraction first opened in 1978. 

Scott said that she has worked with the city for 13 years, and eminent domain has come up only three or four times in that period. 

“We take pride in being able to compromise with property owners in all situations,” she said, but she noted this negotiation is a complex one. 

Bridge condition 
A slide presentation by Foster, with the Public Works department, made a case for the condemnation of the bridge, but it did not include discussion of the condition of the hotel. 

“It’s practically infeasible to replace that bridge and leave the hotel in place,” Foster said. “The structures are intimately tied together, with the age of the hotel being 120 years old and the bridge likely in the same time frame. Those footings and those substructure things that hold both the bridge and the hotel up, they’re connected in some way – we don’t know to what degree.” 

He added that building a bridge that close to the building would not be feasible without demolition, though he added, “With enough money, you could do anything, but in this case it’s practically infeasible to build that bridge and not take the hotel.” 

The city’s Renew Jordan Creek project that includes the bridge replacement seeks to create a public amenity along the restored course of the once-buried Jordan Creek, while also reducing flood elevations in the downtown area.  

Foster said replacing the current Main Avenue bridge with a longer span is important for flood control. 

“Think of it as a pinch point,” he said. “If you have a large channel on both sides of something but you have a smaller channel in the middle, it acts as a dam, and it backs that water up – doesn’t allow that full capacity. So, you have a big pipe on both sides and you have a small pinch point – it allows that water to just pool back up and not actually flow through that location.” 

Foster said the city tries to get every inch of life out of a bridge that it can before replacing it, and it has been proactive on this bridge as well. 

“When the ratings started to deteriorate to the point where we saw that the bridge needed to be replaced, we immediately started working on a funding source and started working through that project,” he said. “Bridges fail slowly over time, and sometimes they rapidly advance, and so once we saw this advancement start to get more advanced in the structural rating … that’s when we immediately started to look at replacing the bridge.” 

Foster showed a series of slides highlighting pack rust along iron girders and noted that concrete flakes off in layers – like a biscuit, he said. He also showed areas of missing rebar, while pointing out that the square shape of the rebar signals work that was done in the late 1920s and 1930s. 

The project has already replaced bridges on Meadows, Walnut, Mount Vernon and Grand streets, with Scenic Avenue’s bridge replacement under contract. The Main Avenue bridge is the last in the series, and its removal will significantly reduce stormwater and flooding issues downtown, Foster said. 

Eminent domain process 
Assistant City Attorney Kyle Tolbert clarified that eminent domain is the power the city is exercising, and condemnation is the legal proceeding by which it exercises that power.  Schrag indicated the move should not be a surprise.

“We’ve had discussions with him for years, so this is not hitting anyone blind,” Schrag said. 

He added that it would appear on the council meeting agenda expected to be posted to the city website today. 

Tolbert said he does not believe Mathis had been made aware of the eminent domain proceedings – something Mathis confirmed by text.  

Scott, the city’s chief spokesperson, added that even council members were not aware of Mathis' counteroffer yet, but the city wanted to communicate openly with members of the public about the agenda item.

SBJ asked Schrag if he felt good about how the city has communicated with a member of the business community and a participant in its ongoing negotiations. 

“I feel really good about the city’s participation in these negotiations for years,” Schrag said. “I believe the city has done every reasonable step the city can do to come to an amicable resolution of this. I firmly believe that.” 

In a March 2023 SBJ reader poll, respondents were divided on the question, “Should the Hotel of Terror building be seized through eminent domain by the city of Springfield?” A narrow majority of respondents – 51% – said no. 

Mathis said he felt as though this was his last Halloween at the Hotel of Terror because of flooding near his attraction – something he attributes to the Renew Jordan Creek construction. 

“Eminent domain is a big surprise considering that all they have done so far this year is trying to flood me out,” he said via text. 

Neither Mathis nor the city were willing to disclose the amount of his latest asking price. 

Mathis was critical of the city’s declaration of eminent domain. 

“Seems like they try something like this when we are out of town,” he said via text. “They did the same thing last time we were out of town with the first eminent domain. We just want to continue our family business like we have for the past 47 years and be left alone or pay what it will cost to move it and rebuild.”