Before Sutherland Hotel was gutted by fire, new owner planned renos, housing conversion, agent says
Nearby hotel owner decries loss of buildings, businesses in north Main Street area
A Winnipeg real estate agent who recently sold a now-demolished hotel on Main Street says the new owners had been planning to renovate it and convert it to housing.
Brad Gross said those plans changed on Wednesday when a fire tore through the Sutherland Hotel. One day later, all that was left of the 143-year-old structure was a pile of rubble surrounded by a metal fence.
"Horrible news for the owner, the buyer, everyone," Gross said Thursday.
The three-storey building was shuttered last summer — shortly after another fire — and boarded up.
Gross said the building's owners closed on an agreement to sell the building earlier in the week, ending an approximate four-month stint on the open market.
The real estate agent estimates he did about 30 showings of the building, which was vacant and without heat or electricity.
He surmises someone entered the premises and started a fire.
"That's what people don't understand. When these buildings are empty, it's actually colder inside than it is outside. So that's, you know, probably why they start the fire to bring some warmth in there," Gross said.
Owners of other businesses along the Main Street corridor are concerned nothing will replace the Sutherland. Previous fires along the strip that resulted in demolitions haven't led to new construction.
Keith Horn, who has owned the Northern Hotel on the other side of Main Street for the last 15 years, said the North End Business Improvement Zone is losing members.
"It's getting worse because 10 years ago the BIZ had 110 businesses. Now we have 57. So as people are retiring and closing up their shops, we're not getting replacement people to come in, we're not getting buildings rebuilt on empty plots of land," he said.
He believes most of the fires that have taken place on and around Main Street in recent years are preventable, including a fourth fire to hit the vacant Holy Ascension Greek Orthodox Church on Euclid Avenue on Jan. 6.
"These aren't fires that just happened because of a spark," Horn said. "These are something that somebody set by accident or purpose probably. People trying to stay warm, start a fire to keep warm and it gets out of hand."
He believes private property owners anywhere in the city need to be diligent in checking vacant buildings they own so as to help thwart the surge of fires in vacant city buildings.
Horn has some long-term residents who he says spent numerous hours inside the hotel.
"They're all saddened by it, but they're happy that it's not here," he said.
Lifelong Point Douglas resident Robert Smith expressed similar sentiment about the old building.
Like Gross, Smith believes people were going into the building and lighting fires in an attempt to stay warm, but it wasn't in the best shape before it was boarded up.
"The hotel wasn't in the greatest conditions. Over the years it was neglected. It wasn't looked after, and a lot of people that lived there had to live with bed bugs, cockroaches, mice and I suppose rats too," he said.
Smith hopes to see future development on the site, but for now says he's glad to see the building go.
"I know it's a historical hotel and maybe a lot of people will miss that hotel, but I won't."
The cause of the fire at the Sutherland Hotel remains under investigation.
WATCH / Another North End Winnipeg building torn down after fire:
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With files from Bartley Kives