When news broke today that the Waldorf hotel, a popular bar and arts haven in east Vancouver, will close Jan. 20 after being sold to a condo developer, the irony was hard to miss.

The Waldorf, after all, located on a desolate stretch of industrialized East Hastings, had been deemed "a Cultural Oasis in the middle of the nowhere" by the Globe and Mail in 2011, a year after its opening.

That "Cultural Oasis" now reportedly belongs to the Solterra Group of Companies, a boutique high-rise and condo builder with eyes on "the very area we helped reinvigorate," Thomas Anselmi, one of the Waldorf's developers, wrote in a release.

"The Waldorf filled a void," Anselmi added. "We tried to stand for something authentic and real in a city with thousands of empty condominiums and a community starved for cultural spaces."

Solterra is currently developing a nine-story residential tower in the heart of Vancouver's historic Chinatown, another front-line in the city’s decades-old, and emotionally charged, gentrification debate.

"Modern, European style interiors - sleek, Italian design kitchens - stone counters – steel appliances…and the list goes on," reads an advertisement for the project, at Keefer and Main street. "MOVE or INVEST in Vancouver's next up and coming neighbourhood -- Historic Chinatown."

Whether the Waldorf property will someday also boast "modern, European style interiors" is hard to say at the moment.

"The City is exploring ways to support the Waldorf continuing as one of Vancouver's most unique and vibrant cultural spaces," Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a statement. "The Waldorf closing is a big loss to Vancouver's growing creative community. They built a great culture hub, and it's my hope that they'll be able to re-launch and return in some form in the near future."

Globe and Mail reporter Frances Bula weighed in on Twitter: "Waldorf is zoned MC-2, an industrial zone, which likely means developer [would] need rezoning, gives city some bargain power."

During its brief history, the Waldorf has played host to cultural events as diverse as the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, the Cheaper Show, Musicwaste, and beginning last summer, a local food cart festival.

Its sale to Solterra will "cost 60 people their jobs," Anselmi wrote. "This has destroyed our business."

Geoff Dembicki reports for The Tyee.