What to do with the Cecil Hotel?

It was December 2008.

Barack Obama was ready to start his first term as president, Naheed Nenshi was still a professor at MRU and Calgary’s city council bought the Cecil Hotel for $10.9 million.

More than five years later, the old building is still seen boarded up and abandoned as Calgarians enter the downtown.

The parcel came in handy as a construction staging area for the 7th Avenue LRT refurbishment, but that project ended more than a year ago and nothing’s been done since then

Conrad Hild, a communications strategist with transportation and infrastructure, said what the city’s doing to demolish the Cecil and maybe build something nice.

“The city’s in the process of investigating various options on what to do with that land, but no decisions have been made at this point,” he said.

Calgary Downtown Association Executive Director Maggie Schofield said while the crime from the Cecil is gone, it would good to see something else built.

“If there’s something of interest there that creates a drive for foot traffic, then it would definitely benefit any of the businesses in the area,” she said.

Schofield expects we’ll hear more as East Village development moves forward.

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