New owner eager to transform old complex
The Charlotte Observer
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Heritage USA: Now … and then New owner eager to transform old complex Even in dim light on a rainy day visit last week, the vacant Heritage Grand Hotel seemed full of possibility to new owner Rick Joyner of MorningStar Fellowship Church.
Hours before the church’s founder bought the hotel and 52 acres of the former Heritage USA property last week, Joyner walked through the property to inspect its condition.
“I’m wondering what to do with all of it,” he said as he peered out over the old Main Street.
As he stepped over broken glass and past dusty corridors, Joyner said the vacant 501-room Heritage Grand Hotel will be ideal for thousands of conference attendees.
The hotel rooms, mostly untouched since closing in 1997, had blinking alarm clocks and plugged-in coffee pots. Joyner, fascinated by each room’s dial-knob televisions, opened and closed doors while a construction manager inspected the leaking roof. The church hopes to transform the hotel and parking area on the former Heritage USA property into its Charlotte congregation home, building a 5,000-seat auditorium on the land where the incomplete 21-story tower now stands. It also plans to open a school as well as hold monthly conferences starting in the spring.
Last month, MorningStar held its first conference on the PTL property at the nearby King’s Arena.
Joyner preached his Sunday church service at the open-air amphitheater, telling the more than 200 people that “church should be the most exciting place we go.”