Heritage building to be cancer centre

NST:MALACCA, Aug 28: The century-old heritage building on Lorong Bunga Raya that was the Majestic Hotel may soon become a cancer centre.
The stately colonial building, now dilapidated and used as a car park for the neighbouring Southern Hospital, was built in early 1900.
It was one of the most prestigious hotels in the State in the 1950s and 60s, and drew the likes of ministers and foreign artistes as guests.
"All the who’s who would stay there when they came to Malacca back then," 93-year-old Datuk Sim Mow Yu, a pioneer of Chinese education in Malaysia, told the New Straits Times.
Situated in the heritage buffer zone next to the Malacca river and opposite Kampung Morten, the hotel was closed when the building was bought by the State Government in 2000.
Although acknowledged by many as a beautiful building, no one knows exactly when or how it came to be built.
Sim, who has witnessed most if not all important historical events that have taken place in modern Malacca, could only recall as far back as the 1920s, when he said the place was owned by one of the richest men in Malacca then — a Guangdong contractor whose name he could not remember.
"It was his family home. The place around the building was not developed back then, so few people would go there. But all Malaccans knew about the grand mansion this rich Guangdong man was living in."
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam said yesterday that the building would be turned into a RM20 million oncology centre. An agreement with a private company in Kuala Lumpur, AIH Group (M) Sdn Bhd, would be signed early next month.
Ali stressed that the old building would not be torn down. "We will try to preserve the building as much as possible," he said.
Despite his assurance, non-governmental organisations and some locals who got wind of the project protested.
Malacca Heritage Resource Society committee member Josephine Chua was concerned that the interior of the building would be gutted.
"It is not enough to preserve the building’s facade," she said. "What is precious is the building’s interior design. I don’t know how AHI can turn it into a modern cancer centre without extensive renovations."
Malacca Historic City Council mayor Datuk Zaini Md Nor had promised to ensure at least the facade of the building was retained.
Lim Jit Pung, 66, who used to operate the Majestic Hotel, believes it should be restored and turned into a museum or remain a hotel.
"Visitors would love it here," Lim said. "In its days of glory, visitors from Kuala Lumpur would come down the coast by boat and then go up the Malacca River because they knew of the Majestic Hotel by the riverbank.
"Throughout the years I managed the hotel, occupancy never fell below 80 per cent."
Lim took over the management of the hotel from his father in 1969, and ran it until it closed down in 2000. His family had been managing the hotel since 1950.
Many believe that with the beautification of the Malacca River, on which the State Government has spent nearly RM150 million to date, restoring the heritage building as the Majestic Hotel would add to the area’s old-world charm.
"It was once furnished with 24 rooms complete with high ceiling fans, old bamboo furniture, stained glass windows and sturdy wooden parquet flooring upstairs and beautiful flowered tiles downstairs," said Lim.
Sim recalled that the hotel came into being when the building was sold by the Guangdong man’s family after the Japanese Occupation ended in 1945.
When Lim took over the hotel, Sim was invited to write the hotel’s name above its front entrance in his popular and sought-after calligraphy.