Ducor Hotel

Ducor Hotel
Former names	Ducor Palace, Ducor Intercontinental Hotel
General information
Type	Hotel
Location	Liberia
Address	Broad Street, Monrovia
Coordinates	6°19′13″N 10°48′49″W / 6.32028°N 10.81361°W / 6.32028; -10.81361
Elevation	7 m (23 ft)
Current tenants	None; numerous squatters currently residing
Completed	1967
Design and construction
Owner	formerly Intercontinental Hotels

The Ducor Palace Hotel is a building in Monrovia, the capital city of the African nation of Liberia. The building overlooks the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the Saint Paul River and Monrovia's West Point district. It is located on Ducor Hill, at the end of Broad Street across from United Nations Boulevard in Monrovia's main business district. Once a luxury hotel, the building has fallen into extensive disrepair.

Operated by the Intercontinental Hotels chain, the Ducor Hotel was the first hotel constructed in Liberia, and one of the few five-star hotels in all of Africa. Its various amenities, including its three hundred rooms, pool, tennis courts, and a French restaurant, made it popular with tourists from the Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, as well as visiting professionals from the US, Europe, and Asia.

With political uncertainty looming, the Ducor Hotel closed in 1989, just before the coup led by Charles Taylor which ousted President Samuel Doe and marked the beginning of the First Liberian Civil War. The building endured much damage during this period, both due to the violence of the war and looting that occurred afterwards. During this time, displaced residents of many of Monrovia's slums began to occupy the hotel's empty rooms.

In 2007, the Liberian Ministry of Justice began to evict the Ducor Hotel's residents.^[1]

In 2008, the Government of Liberia signed a lease agreement with the Government of Libya, who began clearing the property of debris in 2010 in preparation for a bidding process to be completed by June 2010.^[2] However, the project was delayed several times before finally being abandoned upon Liberia's severing of diplomatic relations with the Gaddafi government following the outbreak of the 2011 Libyan civil war.^[3]

References

1. ^ http://www.micat.gov.lr/press.php?news_id=24
2. ^ http://www.libyaonline.com/business/details.php?id=14250
3. ^ Fofana, Fatoumata N. (June 20, 2011). "Libya Defaulted on Projects". Daily Observer. http://www.liberianobserver.com/content/libya-defaulted-projects.