Demolished Sutherland Hotel adds to inner-city blight Historic building joins long list of burned-out Main Street properties; ‘we lose a piece of our identity, I believe, when we lose these buildings’ By: Scott Billeck Posted: 6:25 PM CST Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025

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This article was published 16/01/2025 (623 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 140-year-old building in the heart of Winnipeg’s inner city has been reduced to rubble, leaving another gaping hole along a stretch of Main Street that community members say is being abandoned by the city.

The charred remains of the Sutherland Hotel rose only a few feet high off the ground on Thursday morning, having been demolished overnight, hours after a fire ravaged the vacant three-story building on Wednesday.

“It’s just sad,” said Cindy Tugwell, executive director of Heritage Winnipeg. “Our built heritage is stories about our city and our life and our history. It’s the soul of our city. And we lose a piece of our identity, I believe, when we lose these buildings.”

A section of Sutherland Avenue was taped off Thursday, blackened by the soot and residue from the blaze and demolition efforts.

The hotel was shuttered last summer after another fire, and had fallen victim to others over the years.

 

Within eyesight just a few blocks east stood the gutted remains of the Vulcan Iron Works building that suffered a similar fate last May.

A couple of blocks north down Main, another building — Holy Ascension Greek Orthodox Church — was brought to its knees by an inferno a week ago.

In between are empty lots where buildings, including Surplus Direct, once stood before they, too, met a fiery demise.

Data provided in December showed the city battled 182 fires on vacant properties between January and September 2024, eclipsing 2023’s rate of 156 fires.

At the time, Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service deputy fire chief Scott Wilkinson said the city was on track to exceed 200 vacant building fires for the year.

“It’s a crisis,” Tugwell said of the vacant buildings. “If you’re in the north Main area, whether you’re a business or you live there, I’d be very alarmed to want to stay.”

Some struggle with the choice.

Di Brandt has lived in North Point Douglas for more than a decade.

Her original attraction to the area was affordable home prices. Soon after moving in, she found a vibrant, multicultural neighbourhood with dozens of artists, like herself, living in close proximity.

“It gets so many alarming headlines, and it is a troubled area,” she said.

Brandt said behind the flames and smoke is a community that’s been largely forgotten by the city.

“This is the oldest part of Winnipeg,” she said. “We have all of these historic buildings here, all of this history. It would make for a great tourist place.”

She wishes there were more places to gather, pondering what the Sutherland Hotel could have been if the city had invested in the area rather than watching buildings like it get passed around from one owner to the next.

“We could have turned it into a beautiful visitors spot,” Brandt said. “There’s this beautiful other side to Point Douglas… there’s a lot of courage and spirit here. I find it inspiring.”

Not every resident sees it the same way.

“Either fix them up or tear them down,” said Chris, who asked his last name not be used. “All the drugs that come onto the streets, everyone’s gone cuckoo.

“I don’t like this area. I feel unsafe. I work for a construction company. I know every safety rule you have to have. There’s not one being followed where I live.”

Mynarski Coun. Ross Eadie doesn’t feel the finger should be pointed at the city. He said criminals are setting the vacant buildings ablaze.

“The underlying issue is money,” Eadie said Thursday. “The (building) owners don’t have the money. Should the city raise property taxes to buy the buildings and do something with them? Because that’s ultimately what it comes down to. The underlying problem, and if you look all around the inner city, with all these vacant buildings, is the owners don’t have money to renovate them.”

Sel Burrows, meanwhile, said the hotel won’t be missed.

The longtime Point Douglas resident said the lack of city money to clean up fires is “sickeningly” discriminatory toward the inner city.

“If those burned-out places were in a non-poor residential community, they’d be cleaned up by the city,” Burrows said.

The hotel was once a major crime centre run by the Manitoba Warriors before community members worked with police to push the gang out in the mid-2010s with Project Falling Star, which scooped up dozens of suspected gang members.

Earlier this week, B.C.-based Anhart Community Housing Society, a humanitarian organization, signed an offer to purchase the hotel to turn it into affordable housing.

“I was deeply saddened to hear of the fire,” said Keith Wiebe Gordon, chair at Anhart. “The plan was to restore and repurpose the building … we felt it had such heritage and wanted to preserve it.

“We just started doing our due diligence. We had discussed with the city if they had any drawings or records or other information.”

“The plan was to restore and repurpose the building … we felt it had such heritage and wanted to preserve it.–Keith Wiebe Gordon”

Anhart specializes in renovating old buildings through their non-profit work.

Gordon said they will continue negotiating with the city, Manitoba Housing and other stakeholders to redevelop the site into 100 per cent affordable housing.

“This changes the plan, but not the commitment,” he said.

Gordon’s understanding is the building wasn’t insured under the current ownership, but couldn’t confirm that.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca