Rubble throws wrench into Sutherland Hotel site sale, plans for affordable housing on hold

On Thursday, exactly one year after an inferno razed the former Sutherland Hotel, Keith Wiebe Gordon stood behind a chain link fence at the corner of Main Street and Sutherland Avenue and looked over the charred rubble that remains in its place.

Gordon, the chair and co-founder of Anhart Community Housing Society, wants to transform the site into a new affordable-housing project, but he says a deal to purchase the land has stalled.

The situation has frustrated area residents and their city councillor, who are left to live with the mess.

“If we want to rebuild and make this the sort of community that is a good place for people to live, we need to move on projects like this,” said Elaine Bishop, who has lived in the neighbourhood for 20 years.

“There may be stuff happening behind the scenes we don’t know about, but I would like to see the site cleared up and made safe.”

Gordon held a meeting at 785 Main St. on Thursday, hoping to explain to Bishop and other stakeholders why the plan to redevelop the Sutherland site has not moved forward.

He said Anhart signed an offer to purchase the hotel for approximately $475,000, just days before it caught fire. The goal was to refurbish the hotel into up to 100 affordable-housing units, in partnership with private investors and various levels of government.

Things got complicated when the building was destroyed in an emergency demolition on Jan. 15, 2025, leaving behind an estimated $500,000 bill to remove the rubble and remediate the land. The state of the property has made it difficult to secure financing, so Anhart wants the seller to either cover the cost of remediation or lower their asking price, Gordon said.

The deal remains in limbo, and the parties have not communicated in “a number of months,” Gordon said, adding “we tried very hard, but it wasn’t going anywhere.”

“It’s not easy to solve because the responsibility is on the seller, but it’s very difficult for the seller to deliver the building in that way. And lenders aren’t happy that we would buy a building that we would have to reach up to touch bottom,” he said.

“We’re not willing to wait anymore. We would want negotiations to begin right now.”

The Free Press was unable to reach the property owner, but Brad Gross, the real estate agent representing them in the deal, disputed the idea that negotiations have come to a halt.

He said he submitted a lower asking price to Anhart Wednesday night, but could not disclose the amount.

Gordon said he had not received the new offer as of Thursday afternoon.

Mynarski Coun. Ross Eadie said he would like to see the rubble pile cleared as soon as possible, and suggested the city might be inclined to step in if the parties cannot come to an agreement.

The property is not currently listed on Winnipeg’s vacant and derelict property registry, so the city does not have grounds to take control over it. However, the city could front the cost to remove the rubble, and then recover that money through property taxes at the owner’s expense, Eadie said.

The councillor said he is “pissed off” over the length of time the rubble pile has lingered on the street corner, and said the city should have taken steps to have it removed immediately.

He pointed to the site of the Manwin Hotel, located just a few blocks south, which was destroyed in an overnight fire Wednesday.

Within hours of the blaze, the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service completed an emergency demolition of the lot and the city announced plans to remove the rubble and charge the property owner.

“It’s going to be torn down and cleaned off — why the hell didn’t we do that with the Sutherland Hotel last year?” Eadie said.

“We are treating two properties differently. I’m upset. I don’t know what else to say.”

A similar issue is ongoing at the corner of Main Street and Euclid Avenue, where repeated fires inside a vacant commercial building spread to a neighbouring church, reducing it to debris last January.

Eadie’s constituents have reached out multiple times with complaints and questions about the rubble piles, which have become magnets for illegal dumping and other troubles in his neighbourhood, he said.

“My sympathy, my empathy is with the people of North Point Douglas,” he said.

“What’s the difference?… Well, nobody really cares about the North End.”

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca