Re: 鈥淔ire destroys vacant hotel on Pandora,鈥� May 7.
It would hard to imagine any Victoria resident being teary-eyed at the prospect of Monday morning鈥檚 fire at the old Plaza Hotel. For several years, the demolition and renewal of this site has been held up by demands by the city鈥檚 historical preservation board that a wall of truly unremarkable white, glazed brick veneer be retained as a historic artifact.
With the rooms vacant for several years, the sole function of this hotel had been as the consistent resource point for street-cocaine purchases at its stripper bar. With the closure of that bar, the hotel has sat untouched for years, a blight on the core of the city.
Victoria council needs to encourage a high-quality, mixed-use redevelopment of this central point of the downtown core, which is increasingly looking dowdy, with its many closed storefronts and stained, gum-gobbed sidewalks forming a panhandlers鈥� row.
Douglas Curran
Victoria
