City council voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a $95,000 assessment of the Hacienda Hotel by a Tampa engineering firm, Atelier Architecture Engineering Construction Inc. $50,000 of the funds come from a matching grant from the state that the city received to help restore the hotel which is listed on the Federal Historic Registry.

Atelier was among nine companies that applied to complete the work. New Port Richey is currently in discussions with a single candidate for redeveloping the hotel, a deal of which NewsPortRichey has been critical because of the inexperience of the contractor.