The family that owns the Kailash Hotel, a 27-unit single room occupancy hotel near 16th and Mission streets that has bedeviled neighbors while serving as a source of cheap housing, confirmed to Mission Local on Thursday morning that they intend to sell or lease the building to the city.
Nick Patel, the son of owner Alpesh Patel and the hotel’s manager, said the family is currently holding conversations with city officials on the potential sale or lease. The mayor was seen by neighbors entering the hotel early this week; Patel also confirmed the visit.
The mayor’s office declined to comment on the potential purchase or lease of the building, but pointed to Lurie’s commitment to add more beds and shelter.
Neighbors have long complained that the Kailash, at 179 Julian Ave., attracts drug-dealing and use. People loiter outside the hotel; often, neighbors say, many of those people spill out onto nearby streets and alleyways, where residents live.
Former supervisor Tom Ammiano, who represented the area encompassing the Mission from 2000 to 2008 during his 14 years on the Board, remembered that, even in the early 2000s, the hotel had a reputation.
“Everybody said the same thing: The people who work there are very nice and very helpful, but the other stuff gets trashed,” Ammiano said. “The rooms are dirty, the TVs don’t work and there are rats.”
“It’s always been a place of hazards, waste and garbage. It’s never been an improvement in this whole neighborhood,” added Conrad Grass, the co-owner of a six-unit apartment complex just north of the Kailash at 173 Julian Ave.
Grass, who has owned the property since 1990, does not live at the apartment complex but performs maintenance there. He said that he cleans the area between the two structures on a daily basis, sweeping away garbage thrown from the windows of the Kailash.
“I find needles and all kinds of stuff there,” Grass said, pointing to the gap between his building and the SRO.
Patel, whose father, Alpesh, bought the Kailash Hotel in 2015, pushed back on this characterization. He tries to be a compassionate neighbor, he said, by allowing homeless residents and others to use the hotel’s showers and bathrooms.
“Just because these people are going out of my building doesn’t mean [they’re] staying here,” said Patel. “You can come use the bathroom in my building or take a shower. Where do all these people poop and take a shower? They cannot just pee on the street all the time. They need a toilet.”
Patel said it is difficult to monitor every entry. Some people come into the building immediately behind others, especially at night or when the front-desk staff takes a meal break or goes to the bathroom.
“We try our best, but even if we call the cops, it’s hard, because the cops don’t come down for minor stuff,” said Patel.
“I can tell people not to come inside the building. Outside, if I tell somebody, ‘Hey, you got to move from here.’ They say, ‘This is public property. It’s not yours, fuck off,’” said Patel. “Now you tell me, what can I do? I cannot go outside and fight with people.”
The Kailash Hotel was acquired by Hariombapu LLC, which is run by the Patel family, in 2015 for $2,375,000, according to the assessor’s report. The annual unit usage reports for the last three years, filed with the Department of Building Inspection, list the building as having three stories, three bathrooms and 27 rooms for rent; two on the first floor, 12 on the second and 13 on the third.
Foreclosure proceedings
The property fell behind on its payments, and on Feb. 13, received a notice of default from its lender’s trustee, the opening of the foreclosure process, according to a public document obtained from the San Francisco Assessor Recorder. The default was the hotel’s second in seven months.
The first, on Sept. 4, 2024, was resolved after owners reached an agreement with their lender, the State Bank of Texas, according to a representative at Thyne Berglund & Co, the bank’s trustee.
My family lives across the street from this hotel. We had no idea they allow drug addicts to go inside and shower and use the bathroom with little to no over site. This place is a drug dealing den and all the neighbors see it and live it day in day out! If SF buys or leases they better make sure its a SOBER SRO and not another drug addict drug dealing location. Literally every resident on Julian Ave wants them GONE!!!
God, you’re annoying. You bought a few years back and had no idea what you’re were getting into? Regardless, real estate sites estimate your property value as having increased by roughly $1m since purchase and you’ve directly stated you are looking to move. Move already. Allowing your kids to be used as Daily Mail fodder is fucking horrid.
I think people who make personal attacks like this should be required to disclose their own identity in the comments. How can we judge your character and worthiness to impugn another?
Yes, Jake T. Now that we in the comment section know your name is “Jake T.” , your comment holds so much more value and your ‘worthiness’ to impugn others’ is 10/10. /s
I live nearby and haven’t had any problems with the hotel residences or their guests. I did however live in an SRO in the Tenderloin and know exactly what goes on in those places.
Let’s hope the City master leases the Kailash and that Randy Shaw of the THC gets the contract and this turd bomb ends up in his lap. Could not happen to a more deserving poverty pimp.
A money making contract will surely teach him.
This is just a preview of what Marshall Elementary and surrounding neighbors will have to deal with when the “maravilla” supportive housing goes up. Honestly, we’ve had enough of the city concentrating these types of services and people in the Neighborhood. Sad what’s been done to this neighborhood.
Enough squalor in the Mission. Time to demo this drug den, and replace with some market rate housing.
Neighbors in adjacent streets/alleys have also had enough of the people this hotel attracts. We do not need a city run hotel, it just needs to go.