Plywood now covers the windows of a building that was a fixture in the Saint John tourism business for decades.
The Colonial Inn is the latest in a string of motels and inns that have closed their doors, and there are concerns that it will also become a derelict and unsightly mess in the neighbourhood.
"It's an eyesore. Everything is boarded up and people breaking in," says neighbour Alcide Knowles.
In other parts of the city former motels have sat vacant for years, slowly deteriorating and becoming blight on their surroundings.
Neighbours are wondering why there's no sign of clean-up or demolition at the former motel.
"We're going on four years since we've been at this location and nothing has really changed," says business owner Claudine Sweeney. “There's no for sale sign and no talk of it being torn down.”
The Colonial Inn is located on one of the main routes into the uptown, and also visible from the highway that passes through the city.
"People who are driving by will say, ‘Should I keep going? Because it looks like that place is mostly boarded up.’ It sends the wrong message," says Saint John councillor Donna Reardon.
Reardon says dealing with vacant and boarded up buildings is frustrating, slow and costly. She says the system encourages property owners to put up the plywood.
"Right now the way the system works is if you board up your building and abandon it and leave it derelict, your property taxes drop, your water gets turned off, so you don't have a water bill anymore," says Reardon.
Reardon says provincial legislation limits the ability of cities to go after derelict building owners and force them to fix up or demolish in a timely fashion.
The councillor says she will be watching what happens to the latest building to be boarded up in her ward.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Mike Cameron.
