Cecil Hotel site to become a parking lot

It used to be the site of the notorious Cecil Hotel, but soonyou'll be able to park your car there.

The former hotel building was demolished last December after a report done for the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation found it had little heritage value and would have been too costly to renovate.

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The city bought the property for$10.9 million in 2008 and later sold it to the city-ownedCMLC.

The site at Fourth Avenue and Third Street S.E. has been fenced off and vacant for the past few months. A surface parking lot will be put there by the city-owned corporation which is overseeing the redevelopment of the East Village.

From parking lot to development

The president and CEO of CMLC, Michael Brown, said there's a need for more parking in the area. There are a number of construction projects within a few blocks of the site.

But it's going to be temporary. Brown said he'd like to see some residential development rise on the parcel of land in a couple of years.

"I wish we could actually move faster on developing, but the reality is it takes a good year to figure out a concept, and then another year to go through a development approval process, find a partnerso two years is about the norm," said Brown.

Inside tour of the Cecil Hotel

9 years ago

Duration 1:38

CBC's Evelyne Asselin got a final tour of the Cecil Hotel before demolition of the building starts. One piece has already been taken down, the famous Cecil Hotel landmark neon sign.

Challenging site

It's a different site than some of the other blocks under development in the East Village. He said the Calgary Drop-In Centre's main shelter for homeless people is just to the east and the Bow River is a block away to the north.

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What ultimately gets developed there depends on the market and other projects in the area. Brown said there's the potential for something architecturally unique, given the smallish size of the parcel.

Until then, the Calgary Parking Authority will operate a surface lot which will be open to the public.

New developments

The latest ground-breaking in the East Village will happen just across the street from the Cecil site on Wednesday.

RioCan is getting going on its "5th and Third" project, which will include a Loblaws grocery store and 150,000 square feet of urban retail space.

There will also be a multi-family residential building called Arris on the block which is being developed by Embassy BOSA.

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