Hope for rotting Divine Lorraine hotel?

The Divine Lorraine Hotel at North Broad and Fairmount streets in Philadelphia, the first racially integrated hotel in the city and the headquarters of Father Divine’s Universal Peace Movement, may, at long last, have a buyer who can restore it to at least some of its historical luster.

Closed in 1999, the architectural gem has been subject of a few sales and even more speculation — as well as graffiti and even more weather-related wear-and-tear — in the ensuing years. On Monday, Mayor Michael Nutter announced that restoring the crumbling landmark on North Broad was among his development priorities.

Now, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that an undisclosed buyer has entered into an agreement to buy the Divine Lorraine. Michael Treacy Jr., part of the investment group that paid $10 million in 2006 for the 118-year-old building and adjacent three acres of vacant land, told the newspaper that the potential buyer is investigating a deal and will decide in a month whether to proceed, but Treacy told the paper he was optimistic a deal would finally happen for a beautiful building that’s deserved better than utter neglect over the last decade.