GIA looking at options for property formerly housing American Inn motel

The American Inn motel in Graham was demolished last week as the Graham Industrial Association moves forward with the future of the location on Elm St. The property has been in contract with the GIA for four months and the organization closed the week prior to demolition.

The GIA was founded in 1956 as a private organization to promote economic growth in Graham by bringing potential businesses to the city through the purchasing, sale and leasing of property along with other services. The private organization does not use tax dollars for any of their operations and profits generated are reinvested into the community. GIA president Win Graham said the organization is always looking at ways to improve the community.

“The GIA is constantly looking for ways to invest in Graham and the GIA is a not-for-profit. All the money we receive is reinvested into the community or is donated to the GIA for projects and this (project) is a good example. We used the money that we had in the GIA to purchase the American Inn,” Graham said. “The demolition, the equipment, the crew, was all privately donated so (it is) not costing anybody anything. The removal is going to be privately donated and so that’s not going to cost anybody anything. So, we are going to clean up something that’s really been a mess in Graham for a very long time and we don’t know what we are going to do with that property yet.”

Graham said the American Inn is a project the organization has been looking to take on for years to have a fresh building at the location. He said the next step is to clean up the property which started demolition Monday, July 12. He said the cleanup process will take a couple of weeks and following the cleanup a survey of the location will be completed to find out the exact size of the property.

For the rest of the story, see the July 21 edition of The Graham Leader.