Sutherland Hotel up for sale again

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This article was published 02/12/2024 (466 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former Main Street crime hub is on the market — and by the seller’s description, affordable housing and a grocery store would make for a great reinvention.

The Sutherland Hotel is up for sale for likely the third time in four years. This time, boarded-up windows dot 785 Main St. and no renters live inside.

The current owner gutted the century-old building’s plumbing, electrical and heating while attempting to transform the place and create more rooms, the hotel’s real estate agent said.

However, the job was never finished. The Sutherland has sat boarded up since, at minimum, springtime.

It’s listed for $575,000.

“The hotel does require some substantial work to… be put into it to make it viable,” said Brad Gross, the property’s real estate agent. “We just need to find that right buyer.”

He declined to say how much interior work the three-storey needs. It depends on the buyer’s vision, he said.

He pitched a grocery store or church consuming a portion of the 4,000-sq.-ft. bar.

Just a decade ago, the Sutherland Hotel was known as a crack den and gang hangout. It was hit with a liquor licence suspension in 2015. Police raids and drug deals were used as evidence for pulling the licence.

Criminal activity has seemingly declined on site over the past five years, noted community activist Sel Burrows. He was part of the push for the 2015 liquor suspension.

While crime declined, so did the hotel’s living conditions, Burrows said.

“They had rooms with no doors on them and bathrooms that were not functioning,” he said. “It really became a not very nice place to live.”

“The hotel does require some substantial work to … be put into it to make it viable … We just need to find that right buyer.”–Brad Gross

Gross was tapped to sell the Sutherland Hotel around four or five years ago. He sold to local real estate agents Kulwinder Mavi and Jagdeep Singh, he confirmed.

Between then and now, all the Sutherland’s tenants were evicted, the hotel was listed for $1.3 million, and the guts were removed.

It’s unclear when it happened, how many people were affected and who did the evicting. Gross said he believes Mavi and Singh evicted the tenants; neither agent responded to interview requests.

A different real estate agent apparently sold the property, and Gross is working with the new owner. He declined to share their name. Mavi, Singh and Parveen Kumar are still listed as directors of the Sutherland Hotel’s taxable business on government documents.

The new owner desired to renovate the space but has since put the hotel on the market, Gross said.

“I applaud the guy for buying it and maybe (trying) a fix-up to change that image,” said Keith Horn, chair of the North End BIZ. “I certainly don’t want to see that torn down and have just another empty lot.”

Still, the required renovations are likely very costly. A grocery store — though “needed in the area” — would be expensive to create, Horn said.

Both he and Burrows considered an affordable place to rent rooms a good use of the space.

“I applaud the guy for buying it and maybe (trying) a fix-up to change that image … I certainly don’t want to see that torn down and have just another empty lot.”–Keith Horn

“We need it run by someone who will keep the rooms nice and… keep the crime out of it,” Burrows said.

Ideally, a social agency could buy or be given it, offering a place for long-term care or people who are precariously housed, Burrows relayed. There are three bars across the street — another isn’t needed, he said.

He doesn’t believe a grocery store in the hotel would be trafficked enough. Instead, a hangout with coffee and music would excel, he said.

“There’s nowhere for someone to go in the evening… where there’s no liquor. There’s no drop-in place,” Burrows added. “We desperately need… positive activity for kids and adults in the inner city.”

The Sutherland Hotel doesn’t currently hold any licences issued by the Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Authority of Manitoba, spokeswoman Lisa Hansen noted.

Gross said the property has gotten interest from people outside of Manitoba, in Canadian metros like Vancouver. The site can be a money-maker between rental income, alcohol sales and “whatever you want (to put) in there,” he said.

The location has been a tough sell, but the Sutherland Hotel’s side of Main Street is quieter than loitering happening across the street, Gross said.

(The Winnipeg Police Service has clocked year-over-year decreases in violent crime over the past three years, ending in August, in the Sutherland Hotel’s section of North Point Douglas. In the year ending in August, police counted 31 violent crimes. However, property crime continues to rise.)

The hotel’s online listing highlights City of Winnipeg development incentives.

“Nobody’s going to get funding for affordable (housing) there if there’s a bar,” stated Coun. Ross Eadie (Mynarski).

The building might be worth tearing down for a mixed-use or affordable housing development, he added.

The Sutherland Hotel doesn’t have heritage status and isn’t protected from demolition. It was previously called the Palace Hotel in the early 1900s before changing to the Sutherland Hotel after 1910.

The hotel is nearly 14,000 sq. ft. It’s spent more than 50 days on the market.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com