The Grand Hotel, once the crown jewel of the Lake Wales downtown commercial district, sits empty, unpainted, surrounded by a construction fence. The community has anticipated some type of building renewal since the City Commission gave a developer control (and now ownership) of the building a couple of years ago.

It has been years since the city put out a call for developers to submit their ideas about how they would renovate the building. After considering several candidates, the city commission picked Ray Brown as the man who would wind up owning and fixing the old building.