TOLEDO, Ohio — The vacant Hotel Seagate in downtown Toledo, which has sat vacant for 12 years is finally coming down, after multiple plans to reopen the hotel fell through, one by one.
Toledo's saga with the Hotel Seagate started on Feb 20, 2009. Pipes had frozen over in the hotel and it was announced the hotel temporarily would be stopping operations.
Little did anyone know, this was only the beginning.
The building was sold but the new owners were never able to open the doors.
in 2011, the county came up with the idea of moving a ballroom there, a theme you'll see pop up in the 2020 plans for a larger redevelopment project.
The county bought the building in 2014, five years after the hotel closed, hoping it could be redeveloped.
Jump ahead to 2016, without any serious interest, the county decided to tear down the structure only to discover it was built with asbestos.
Even with that news, in 2017, the plan to re-utilize the existing shell and turn it into another hotel was announced.
In 2018, the hotel plan never materialized, and the county had another problem, squatters using the empty building.
Still determined to make something of the former hotel, in 2019, a full decade after closing, inspections were done to see if it's possible to keep the structure standing.
After 11 years and all those stops and starts, a new plan emerged: Tear the former hotel down and build a park.
The Hotel Seagate has seen major developments surround it from the convention center and Fifth Third Field and its demolition will now help re-invigorate the area.
The now-empty Park Inn on the same block will be turned into two Hilton Hotels and the SeaGate Convention Centre will be renamed as the Glass City Event and Convention Center.
RELATED: Park Inn to become Hilton Garden Inn & Homewood Suites; Hotel Seagate to be fully demolished
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