Palomino to be demolished Monday

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/11/2016 (3537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been good to know you, Pal.

Monday, demolition crews will tear down the once iconic Palomino nightclub club where a generation partied. The Portage Avenue club, with its signature neon sign of a rearing stallion, closed to patrons last January after 27 years.

Since then, the location has sat empty as developers prepare to raze the building and start construction on a 60-unit condominium complex.

Some 25 per cent of the units in the complex, to be called The Icon, are already sold.

The president of the condo developer, Keith Merkel, president of EdgeCorp Developments Ltd., said he felt he had to mark the day, so Sunday he issued a press statement to announce the demolition.

“It’s kind of of the end of an era and the beginning of a new one,” Merkel said in a phone interview Sunday.

The Palomino evoked good times for an entire generation, Merkel added.

“People have been coming up and asking me, ‘Hey, are you actually going to do that, tear it down?’ One person wanted a piece of the floor, another wanted a stool. Everybody from the baby boomer generation has a story about that place,” Merkel said.

“Someone on the (demolition) work crew said last week, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been to that building sober.'”

The most recent and probably the most famous story came from NHL celebrity Teemu Selanne.

The former Winnipeg Jet returned to Winnipeg for the Heritage Classic and was presented with a key to the city.

Thousands heard Selanne playfully claim he would use the key to reopen the Palomino.

“Teemu Selanne said that at the Heritage Classic,” Merkel chuckled.

Demolition starts at 6:30 a.m. and is slated to be complete by the end of November.

Construction starts immediately after that on The Icon, the condo project. Units start at $169,900 and the location will include indoor and surface parking.

The four-storey building will contain condos with one, two and three bedrooms as well as eight units that are accessible for residents with physical handicaps.

The new complex on the edge of the Wolseley area is expected to be ready for occupancy a year from now, Merkel said.

Christian Stringer, a longtime employee and manager at the Palomino, bought the right to use the Palomino brand from Cary Paul, who founded the bar in 1988. Stringer took occupancy of the former Whiskey Dix on Main Street and reopened it as the Palomino.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca