[RKDinOKC]

Kimray (the company I work for) bought the old Hoiday Inn and repurposed it as a training center for a ministry my brother was involved in. Because some staff would be living there full time (staying for longer than one month) the buildings residency was changed and the fire systems and escapes had to be upgraded to meet stricter codes. I got to manage that, do all the drawings and get everything approved.

When researching and getting the systems and drawings approved was told by almost everyone I came into contact with having to do with the fire safety that the stricter residency code was BS and to simply take the fire marshal for a car ride. Then with the windows up ask what it would take to get the building to meet code. Said I would be told where do deposit how much to get it to pass as is.

Tired meeting with the city council and get a variance, but that was a waste of time. Understand if we would have followed the instructions above, the fire marshals would have helped get a variance past the city council instead of vehemently opposing our request. So, we opted to actually bring the building up to full time residency code even thought it was very expensive to re-sprinkle the entire building and add 2 fire escapes.

Later Kimray sold the building to Hobby Lobby who gave it to the ministry using it for a tax break. The tax break was higher for Hobby Lobby than Kimray.