toward the old hotel. “I think architecturally it's significant, historically it's significant and it would be really nice to see it somehow evolve to be part of the downtown again,” he said. “I just don't think that we are in any position to develop it ourselves, given everything else that's going on. If no one develops it, we'll probably demolish it.” In 2002, following Tony George’s pronouncement regarding his general disinterest in the Terre Haute House John R. Bischoff met with Hulman officials Jeff Belskus, Curt Brighton, and Fred Nation and convinced them to consider one last effort to renovate the property. Bischoff, along with local attorney C. Joseph Anderson and Charles Faust of Summit Hotel Management formed Haute Maison Development LLC for that purpose. Haute Maison struck a deal with Marriott Corporation. HNTB became the architect of record and F. A. Wilhelm was selected to renovate the structure. Complicating the effort to fund the project was the fact that Mayor Judy Anderson, in office at the beginning of Haute Maison’s effort, was the sister-in-law of Haute Maison partner C. Joseph Anderson. Anderson was already under attack for choosing one of her sons to serve as her administrative assistant and for granting another son a city sidewalk contract. Many political observers believe such decisions significantly contributed to her defeat by Kevin Burke in the May 2003 mayoral primary. By the time Burke took office, Haute Maison had secured the necessary funding commitments in the form of syndication of Historic Tax Credits, New Markets Tax Credits, and certain state credits. Essentially all funding, including the mortgage funding was to come from out-of-town sources. Bischoff and Anderson met with Burke, not to obtain any form of city financial support, but to ask him to refrain from seeking to block their effort. In response, Burke later attended an Urban Enterprise Association meeting in which he warned the membership against providing the project $250,000 in assistance it had promised the developers. Later a legal representative of the developer’s New Market Tax Credit funding source came to town simply to determine that the city was receptive to the development. Burke, through his representative, successfully soured the representative on investment in the city. He had many other cities seeking such investment and willing to contribute their fair share. Burke successfully blocked all other efforts to renovate the building by convincing the building owners to allow the