Farewell, Creepy Motel

If you're not familiar with Fredericksburg, VA's lodging industry, you've missed a golden opportunity. The Twi-Lite Motel [this landmark doesn't even have a website..so you know it's 5-star] located on Route 1 is closing its doors to the shady and lawfully-challenged residents of the 540. My alma mater, the University of Mary Washington, has purchased the property for $1.5 million- that's about $800k over the assessed value.

UMW has purchased the land surounding the motel as part of its new Eagle Village. Once constructed over the current low-income shopping haven, it will be an oasis for hipster and yuppie college kids looking to avoid the droll of Fredericksburg's soon-to-be un-cool places to hang out (e.g. historic downtown and Central Park). Although, I'm sure the most pretentious (read: "original") of said yuppies and hipsters will prefer downtown only to say that they were true to their roots or some other bogus claim to assert their being cooler than you. Anyways, the original Eagle Village plan didn't incorporate the Twi-Lite Motel, so you could imagine the ire of snooty university officials willing to do/pay anything to acquire the body-fluid stained motel. I'm not adding that in for dramatic effect either. There were many instances of people being stabbed/shot/bludgeoned/smothered at the motel. Not to mention all the call girls.

So if you were investing a boat-load of money to expand your university by adding a brand new commercial/residential complex for your students, the last thing you'd want for a neighbor is a building full of skeezy guys with various women of the night charging by the hour. And I'm not talking about the women- it's the motel that charges by the hour.

So fare thee well, Twi-lite Motel. Aside from being a den of sin for drug addicts, sexual predators, and lonely old men, you had a good run. Here's a quick look back at some of your glorious skidmarks:

August 1989: a badly decomposed body was found inside a car parked behind the motel.

September 1989: woman gives birth to a 4-pound, 14-ounce girl there.

February 1991: a maid discovered the body of a Richmond woman in the motel.

August 1996: a man blew up a quarter stick of dynamite at the motel and chased passers-by with a machete.

September 2004: a man's body was found in a trash bin at the motel.