It's time to bid adieu to the former Executive Park Motor Hotel. The long-abandoned, 19-story tower near Interstate 85 and North Druid Hills Road is coming down. Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, which already owned buildings in the surrounding Tullie Road area, purchased the old hotel last January for $9.6 million. The thinking at the time was that acquiring the tower would boost the hospital's visibility along the interstate, but that doesn't appear to be the goal; permits have been filed for the demolition of several nearby buildings and CHOA spokeswoman Patty Gregory confirmed plans call for the tower to be torn down, too. Gregory said more details regarding the tear-down (and ostensibly the construction of something else) will be released "sometime in the next six to eight weeks."

According to a vintage advertisement discovered on Amazon, the tower at the Executive Park Motor Hotel opened in 1971 and brought the whole complex up to 474 "comfort-conditioned rooms." It's unclear when exactly the site was forsaken but, in 2009, developers briefly proposed flipping the site into a 425-unit apartment project. What exactly CHOA has in mind for the property — and if another tower will go up — is a mystery for now. For what it's worth, permits filed with DeKalb County ask for permission to demolish "down to the foundations while leaving the slabs in place."

It's a shame when any piece of Atlanta history disappears, but here's a serious question: Will anyone out there miss staring at this abandoned, brown, vaguely Cold War behemoth as they cruise down the interstate?

— By Curbed Atlanta contributor Tyler Estep

· Children's Healthcare Buys Former 19-Story Hotel [ABC]