The building at Queen St. E. and Broadview Ave. that housed Jilly’s strip club is poised to become a boutique hotel.

Streetcar Developments, the firm that owns the property, will face City Hall’s Committee of Adjustment Wednesday in a bid to gain approval for sweeping renovations that would more than double the site’s floor space.

If it gets rubber stamped, the overhaul would replace brass poles and catwalks with a ground-floor restaurant and 57 hotel rooms. It would also hasten Riverdale’s already-rapid gentrification, which has brought new bars, condos, and coffee shops to the once rundown neighbourhood.

While the façade of the historic, red-brick structure will be maintained, the building’s lower, northern end is set to be retrofitted with glass and metal additions to accommodate guests, according to Streetcar president Les Mallins.

The company’s goal is “striking the right balance of respecting the historical nature of the building, and giving it new life,” he said.

The New Broadview Hotel – known for decades, simply, as Jilly’s – was built in 1891 as a hall for public gatherings, and converted to a hotel after a 1907 ownership change. By 1986, when discount retail magnate Harold Kamin bought the property, its lower level was a strip club.

Streetcar’s latest plan would make the building an eastern equivalent to the revitalized Gladstone Hotel near Queen and Dufferin Sts.

Once seedy, now trendy, the Gladstone’s red brick and Romanesque-style are a mirror image of the New Broadview Hotel.

Mallins said he met with Gladstone president Christina Zeidler to mine her for “insight” but doesn’t want to let the symmetry of the buildings overshadow his project.

“By no stretch would we be trying to mirror their success,” he said. “This isn’t West Queen West. I think the hotel needs to take on the character of the neighbourhood.”

Local sentiment seems to be behind Streetcar’s proposal. “The fact that they’re going to be able to ensure that this building …will have another life is pretty significant all around,” said Paula Fletcher, city councillor for the area. “I’m really hoping that it can be a really brand-new, exciting site in the east end.”

Mallins said the company ran an online poll about future uses for the site, which Streetcar bought in May, and “boutique hotel was the overwhelming frontrunner.”

Streetcar also hopes to attract film industry out-of-towners working on shoots at the Port Lands movie studios to the south.

“The east end is hotel deficient,” Mallins said, noting with a laugh that the Days Inn at Queen St. E. and Kingston Rd. is their closest competition.

While the developer plans on preserving the building’s architectural heritage, fixing structural problems is a top priority and could cost an estimated $400,000.

Dealing with other remnants of the hotel’s notorious past may also pose problems – for example, what to do with the stripper poles?

First step? “Clean them,” said Mallins.

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Mobile users tap here for an interactive look at planned changes to the building.