Jan. 11, 2010--Greeley's downtown hotel and conference center is on its last leg, now after not quite two years of new owners operating it.

Roughly 12 employees of The Clarion Hotel and Conference Center walked off the job Sunday, after working for free for the last month. The hotel also is scheduled for foreclosure in April, while being booked for several big events this spring and summer.

The Clarion has been locked in a struggle to survive for several years, and almost immediately since Penta Hospital, run by Tarun Patel, Mukesh Mowji and Anil Patel, bought it in February 2008 for $4 million.

The remaining balance on the hotel loan is almost $3.6 million, and it will be sold at public auction on April 21, if the owners do not cure the loan.

More immediately, however, the hotel is operating without employees, according to its former front Desk manager, who has been with the hotel for seven years.

She said employees have not been paid since Dec. 11, and some families that have been left homeless as a result of not being able to pay rent, have been staying at the hotel, and getting food boxes from the Weld Food Bank to survive. On Sunday, the employees decided they couldn't work for free any longer, all tendering letters of resignation.

Only the hotel's general manager, Heather Scott, and her daughter-in-law remain, employees said. Scott did not return phone calls for comment this morning.

For more on this story, see Tuesday's Tribune.

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