Footage shows a row of shops in the Thai red light district bought by developers to demolish to make way for a new hotel in central Bangkok.

The crumbling shop houses - built in the 1970s - are on prime real estate on Sukhumvit Road opposite the Terminal 21 shopping mall and next to the MRT Sukhumvit and BTS Asoke train stations.

They housed bars and massage parlours around 100 metres from Soi Cowboy and a short walk to the Nana Plaza shopping mall style three-story complex of gogo bar brothels.

In a sign of the rapid gentrification of the area, developers paid 'an astronomical sum of money' for the freehold to all of the properties in order to acquire the land.

Work will now start shortly on a new hotel targeting tourists visiting the city.

A previous tennant, who had run a bar there for more than a decade, said: 'There was nothing I could do. The owner informed me they had sold the land and that my lease would be ending.

'The area is changing. It will never be the same again. Is that a good thing? Yes, in some ways it is better for the country but it's also sad as I've had many happy years of my life here and the atmosphere will be lost.'

Similar buy-ups of the land is happening continuously along the same stretch of road, with new offices, hotels and shopping malls replacing the crumbling old three or four-storey shop houses.

Earlier this year the Thai Obayashi corporatio opened O-Nes tower on a patch of land that had also previously been occupied by older buildings. Opposite that a wooden home was demolished and a tower block is currently under construction.

Further along the road next to the Sukhumvit Soi 22 road, a vast shopping mall-style venue called Emsphere is due to open next year as well as sky-high office block to be used by a multi-national corporation opposite.