As the neighbourhood decayed, the luxury hotel was converted to a Holiday Inn Garden Court, with only 270 rooms remaining in use, but the lack of demand for hotels in the CBD eventually caused the hotel to close completely, in September 1998. It reopened very briefly for the Earth Summit 2002 on sustainable development as the KwaDukuza eGoli Hotel, a name meaning "Gathering Place in the City of Gold". The hotel was owned by Mark Whitehead of Whitehead Enterprises. It hosted 2,000 police officers, but their stay was marred by a murder in the hotel and severe problems with the physical systems of the building. The hotel soon went out of business again. The building is currently "mothballed."