Chestnut Residence

89 Chestnut Residence is a university residence operated by the University of Toronto, opposite the Metropolitan Hotel on Chestnut Street. Known as "The Nut" by its student residents, it was converted from the Colony Hotel in 2004 and turned into a student residence to accommodate the incoming double cohort in 2003 and 2004. It is located in downtown Toronto, just north of Toronto City Hall and near Nathan Philips Square.The building was originally constructed as a Holiday Inn. When it opened in 1972 it was the fourth largest hotel in the city, with 749 rooms. It cost some $18 million to build and was built on the site of many small buildings of what was then the centre of Toronto's Chinatown.The hotel was purchased by Hong Kong investor Sally Aw for $73 million in 1989 and renamed the Colony Hotel. After Aw ran into financial difficulties the university purchased the hotel from $72 million in 2003, at the height of a downtown in Toronto's hotel industry.