The old Cecil Hotel has been closed for three years and the city is still trying to decide what to do with the site it sits on.
The Cecil Hotel opened its doors in 1912 and was originally built as an inn for visiting labourers.
By the mid-1970s the hotel had fallen on hard times and was becoming a bit shabby.
Police were called out on a regular basis to the inn for a variety of calls ranging from assaults to drug deals.
In the year before it was shut down, police responded to 1700 calls at the Cecil.
The city bought the place for $10.9 million in 2009 and was looking to tear the place down to make way for a parkade, office space or condos.
Sean Somers from the city’s Transportation Department, which has stewardship of the Cecil, says the future of the old inn is uncertain.
“In terms of going forward, we don’t really know at this point what it’s going to be used for. So at this point the future in undetermined,” said Somers.
There was also talk about preserving the old hotel as a heritage site but that idea was dismissed after it was determined that anything of historical significance was destroyed in a 1982 fire.
The site is currently being used to store construction materials for the 7th Avenue LRT project.
