Dewberry’s Rat Hotel: Could the Charlottesville eyesore cause serious injury?

The infamous Rat Hotel in Boston was a deteriorating, crappy dive back in the 1970s and 80s, but at least it hosted bands like the Cars, Talking Heads, the B-52s, The Ramones, and The Police. Our deteriorating, crappy Rat Hotel just hosts rats. According to sources who work close to Atlanta-based developer John Dewberry’s “Landmark” hotel structure, a large population of rats now occupy the structure, and pour out from the building to meander across the brick paving and scavenge through nearby trash bins. What’s more, sources says numerous amounts of debris have fallen from the structure over the years. As if the visual abuse the eyesore has inflicted on the DTM since 2009 wasn’t enough.

But what about the structure itself? Could Dewberry’s Rat Hotel cause serious injury to someone?

Nine years ago, UVA engineering professor Thomas Baber warned that over time the exposed concrete of the abandoned “Landmark” hotel structure could be subject to “freeze-thaw cycles” which could “damage the …