Another landmark Cambridge building has been reduced to rubble.
Razed by fire Saturday night, an excavator spent Sunday and most of the morning Monday taking down the charred walls of The Hopper as spectators watched across King Street at the building that has been a fixture on that corner in Preston since 1839.
Firefighters continue to investigate the cause of the suspicious fire two days after five stations responded to the evening conflagration at King and Lowther streets.
Police who were on the scene around 8:30 p.m. Saturday witnessed at least one person exiting the vacant and boarded up building that was supposed to have been empty while awaiting a property sale to move forward that would have seen the old building demolished anyway.
Although it's not on the city's heritage registry, the building has deep roots in Preston as the original hotel of German immigrant and brewer Otto Klotz, who became one of the town's first school board trustees and later superintendent.
Klotz sold the hotel in 1879 and it became the Central Hotel, a name it retained for most of its life.
"It's a shame. Another one of my watering holes gone," said Bob Sipes who was up the road at Silver Spoon on Saturday when he learned about the fire.
When he made his way down King Street East he noticed four people sitting on the sidewalk in front of the building and recognized them as squatters who were regularly in and out of the old apartments.
"You could get in the place so easy," he said.
Ward 3 Coun. Corey Kimpson said although the main floor night club and pool hall had been condemned and vacant since the 2015 fire, the second floor apartments were still being rented out until recently. But with a sale for the property pending, the tenants were asked to leave and offered lump sum payments.
Kimpson said the owners had been working diligently with the city over the last year to complete the necessary archeological, heritage impact and planning studies to support the $2.1 million sale of the property with a proposal to build a 48-unit apartment building on the corner with 10,000 square feet of main floor commercial space.
Jamie Montag, one of the investors who owns the property, called the whole situation very tragic after working on the project for the last two years.
Part of those discussions included consultation with the city's heritage advisory committee about possibly retaining part of the wall that faced Lowther Street since it was thought to be original to the 1839 hotel.
Montag hadn't had an update from the Cambridge Fire Department on Monday afternoon as demolition on the fire-ravaged hotel continued.
Although other media reports said the loss was $1 million, the city said a damage estimate was not available and the cause remains under investigation.
Waterloo Regional Police had no further update on their investigation as of Monday afternoon.
The 25 seniors who were evacuated from St. Peter's Place apartments on Church Street due to concerns about air quality in the neighbourhood near the fire returned home Sunday after spending overnight Saturday on one of two Grand River Transit buses parked at the Preston Memorial Auditorium.
Kimpson said she heard about the evacuation and rushed to the arena to check in on everyone knowing the arena expansion project has made it inaccessible during construction. She said accessible washrooms were eventually opened at the Karl Homuth Arena to accommodate the overnight evacuation, which was managed by Red Cross and Region of Waterloo Social Services.
