Remains of Windsor Hotel demolished By: Joyanne Pursaga Posted: 11:50 AM CDT Thursday, Sep. 14, 2023 Last Modified: 10:53 AM CDT Friday, Sep. 15, 2023 Updates

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This article was published 14/09/2023 (1130 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bricks, shards of wood and other debris now cover the lot where the Windsor Hotel once stood, leaving another Winnipeg property reduced to a fenced-in mound of charred rubble.

Fire destroyed the vacant historic hotel Wednesday, leading the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service to order an emergency demolition of its remains. The task was completed by Thursday morning.

As with other buildings reduced to rubble in recent months, it’s not yet clear when the debris will be removed.

“The remaining debris is the responsibility of the owner to clean up under permit. The city has been in contact with the owner to instruct them on their requirements,” spokesman Kalen Qually said in an emailed statement.

Once a permit is issued, the applicant will have 30 days to start work and 60 days to complete it, Qually noted.

A downtown business leader said the structure’s loss bodes poorly for the area.

“An empty building or an empty lot doesn’t help anyone downtown. It really leaves a big hole in that area of the neighbourhood,” said Kate Fenske, chief executive officer of the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ. “We’d really like to see a development plan (for that site) that activates the street … bringing people to the area.”

A heritage advocate said she’s also concerned about the loss.

“I don’t think it’s just the fire itself, but what it does to the street, to the downtown and to the community,” said Cindy Tugwell, executive director of Heritage Winnipeg.

An apparent surge in vacant-building blazes in recent months highlights the risk facing hundreds of empty local structures, which are vulnerable to fire, crime and other threats, said Tugwell.

“I hate to say it, but there’s no shock when a lot of these vacant buildings get shut down and then, subsequently, have catastrophes,” she said.

“I hate to say it, but there’s no shock when a lot of these vacant buildings get shut down and then, subsequently, have catastrophes.”–Cindy Tugwell

Tugwell said she’d like to see a further crackdown on derelict buildings, possibly by the city setting tighter deadlines regarding how long a building can sit vacant before the municipal government steps in to take over ownership.

She said it’s especially disappointing to see the historic Windsor Hotel reduced to rubble, after previous inspections found it wasn’t properly maintained.

“Why did we allow it to get that way? At one point, that building was very vibrant. It was sort of a jazz hub … and it really brought the street alive,” she said.

In the early 2000s, Heritage Winnipeg lobbied to have the Windsor Hotel added to the city’s list of historical resources, which would have protected it against demolition. Tugwell said that request was rejected in 2010.

First constructed as a boarding house in 1903, the property was redesigned as a hotel in 1910. It opened as the Le Claire Hotel and was renamed the Windsor Hotel in 1930. Silent film star Charlie Chaplin stayed at the Le Claire in 1913, and a cutout image of Chaplin was featured on the building’s balcony.

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We can’t accept being a city of burnt buildings and rubble

Coun. Sherri Rollins said cleaning up rubble at such sites and preventing such losses altogether is an urgent priority, noting council in June approved a “tough as nails” approach to crack down on vacant and derelict buildings.

The changes include ramping up security standards for buildings that have been repeatedly set on fire or used by squatters, adding four more bylaw enforcement officers to increase inspections, and raising some inspection fees.

“We have the oldest housing and apartment stock in the country. On one hand, that built heritage is a source of income for the city. We have filmmakers that come from far and wide to film our built heritage. … On the other (hand), we have the dilemma that we saw yesterday,” said Rollins, the head of council’s property and development committee.

The councillor stressed efforts to secure the property began promptly.

Other council members fear the site could join a growing number of rubble-filled lots on which debris remains in place for months, such as the former Vulcan Iron Works on Sutherland Avenue, which a blaze gutted in early July, and 694 Sherbrook St., where fire destroyed a three-storey apartment block in February 2022.

Coun. Cindy Gilroy is calling for the city to clean debris off any demolition site where an owner fails to do so for six months or more, then add the cost to the owner’s property tax bill. She said the Windsor Hotel fire highlights the need for that change.

“This is a prime example of another building that could be just sitting there (for years). We’ve got to make sure the city has a mechanism in order to get these cleaned up fast,” she said.

In a report, city staff warn it could cost more money to clean up such properties than the city could recover from owners, even when it seizes a property as a result of overdue tax bills. This week, council’s community services committee referred that report to the property and development committee for further consideration.

A provincial health-hazard order shut down the Windsor Hotel in March, which forced its low-income renters to find new homes.

A city report following the closure identified the hotel’s owner only as Garry 187 Enterprises Ltd. In May, the owner’s lawyer Frank Bueti asked the city to allow an assessment of the structure to continue until Aug. 31, which was meant to determine if the property could be saved.

The letter stated the owner took possession of the building on Feb. 28, 2023.

Bueti declined comment on Thursday.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga

Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter

Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.

Every piece of reporting Joyanne produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.