In the mid-1800s, part of the old monastery was demolished to construct Venice Santa Lucia railway station, radically transforming the final urban section of the Grand Canal. This led to the disappearance of the Church of Santa Lucia (which once stood on the site now occupied by the station with the same name and is commemorated with a stone plaque) and an entire residential area with buildings dating from the 16th century.

As early as 1846, following construction of the railway bridge linking the city to the mainland, major changes were made to the area. In 1858 the two banks of the Grand Canal were linked by an iron bridge (the Ponte delgi Scalzi, now in stone). Between 1860 and 1861, all buildings from the monastery vegetable gardens to the edge of the lagoon were demolished to construct the rail terminus and provide the small station with an outlet to the Grand Canal.

Halfway through the last century, further expansion of the railway station gave the area its current configuration, completely unrecognisable from its past layout.

The Monastery and Church of the Scalzi was built by the Discalced Carmelite Friars in 1656 to a design by Baldassare Longhena. Longhena created a building to fulfil the precise requisites of the Carmelite Friars, with a structural plan and sumptuous decorations reminiscent of the Carmelite churches in Rome (Santa Maria dei Campitelli) and Spain. The architecture is thus characterised by the Roman influence, an absolute innovation for Venice where the churches and monasteries had formerly been constructed with a simple severe design.

Today, following the recent restoration of the entire building, the corridors, rooms and garden of the Hotel Abbazia still retain the atmosphere of a religious institution of past centuries, set into an absolutely unique and unforgettable urban context.