10/9/2008 - This Crowne Plaza story is a national issue.  The corporation that owns the hotel is called Kronos Hotels, and is based in Atlanta, GA.  This week I've spent hours on the phone talking with reporters from across the country about problems at their Kronos owned hotels.

At first, I thought the problems of bouncing paychecks and not paying vendors was isolated to the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons.  I was wrong.  So, for those around Cedar Rapids, don't feel like it's just this one hotel that is having issues.  The issues are popping up at nearly all of the hotels owned by Kronos Hotels.

A health inspector in Pennsylvania went into one Kronos owned hotel and found that, because the walk-in refrigerator stopped working, workers there used an A/C unit in a guest room to keep food cool.  It didn't work and the health inspector promptly dealt with the problem.

Several of the hotels have lost their brand affiliation in the last few weeks.  Crowne Plaza Five Seasons is still considered a Crowne Plaza.  IHG owns that name and won't comment on the situation with the hotel.  However, one must wonder just what a Crowne Plaza name means if they have hotels in the situations like that in Cedar Rapids.  I personally haven't stayed there, but I've spoken with dozens who have, and I keep hearing the same story over and over.

There is still a chance for the hotel to redeem itself.  The hotel is in the middle of a multi-million dollar renovation.  According to the pictures, the end result will be very nice and quite admirable.  However, they are far from finished with that renovation, and their deadline has passed several times.  They keep getting extensions, however, Patrick DePalma with the Five Seasons Commission - the group that owns the land the hotel sits on - says he's never seen proof of those extensions from IHG.  Again, IHG won't comment on the hotel's situation.

We're following this, and fact checking everything we hear before we run it on the air or in this blog.