Music lovers will soon be singing the blues in Calgary — and that’s a great thing for fans of heritage preservation.

That’s because one of the city’s key musical landmarks — the King Edward Hotel — is undergoing a multi-million-dollar restoration and expansion.

The King Eddy, possibly the oldest blues bar in Canada, is being transformed into the new home of the National Music Centre, a museum and performance facility dedicated to showcasing Canada’s musical past, present, and future.

Located in the city’s East Village neighbourhood, the venue was known to patrons as the “Home of the Blues.” Many musical legends played there, including BB King, John Hammond, Pinetop Perkins and Buddy Guy. Built in 1905, the hotel enjoyed years of glory, followed by decades of decline; it closed in 2004.

In February 2013 the National Music Centre broke ground on the restoration and expansion project. The King Eddy was taken apart brick by brick. Each brick has been cleaned, stored and placed on numbered pallets so that the building can be reassembled exactly as it was in 1905. Not only will original bricks be recycled, but original sandstone windowsills, cornices, and the signature neon sword sign will also be re-used.

The King Eddy will be the showcase element of more than $200-million expansion. It will host live music seven days a week and boast five floors of exhibition space, a three-hundred-seat performance venue, a radio station, recording studio facilities, distance education classrooms, and much more. The building itself will be considered the “largest artifact” in the NMC collection.

The new facility is expected to open in the spring of 2016.

For more information, visit the National Music Centre website.