Hotel plan for famed brothel site

A $20 million hotel and an upmarket backpackers' are favoured options for a site that once housed one of Auckland's most colourful brothels.

Gaowoo Holdings Trust expects to decide its plans for the corner of Pitt and Vincent Sts in the city centre within three weeks.

The building that housed Famous Flora's brothel and a landmark Shell petrol station, which closed on Wednesday, will be bowled.

Developer Jimmy Wu was in Sydney last week to talk to Metro Hotels about a plan for a $20 million, 170-room, four-star hotel, with restaurant, bar, conference facilities and swimming pool.

"That is our plan A, but nothing is concrete," said Wu.

A big hurdle was poor returns on new hotel investment. Occupancies have not recovered from the global economic crisis, said Wu. So plan B was to build a less costly upper-range backpackers'.

"We will make a decision in the next two or three weeks."

Famous Flora's closed in early 2008.

Lyn Kingsnorth, whose father, Ron King, ran it for about 30 years before she and her brother Roy took over, said she had many colourful memories.

It would be sad to see the building go.

"It is a part of our childhood. I remember going up there as a little girl to see my dad," said Kingsnorth.

She recalls many police raids before prostitution was legalised in 2003.

"They would smash open the doors so we got electric doors to try to keep them out," she said.

Superstitious sex workers believed the place was haunted by a client who died midway through "his hour of ecstasy".