The Wacky Wings restaurant building at 187 Shaughnessy St. began coming down on Tuesday morning as heavy machinery made short work of the longstanding structure.
This is the final of numerous buildings to be demolished to make way for the downtown arena/event centre project, consisting of both the municipal facility itself and as-yet undetermined private ancillary services.
Although Wacky Wings is the final building city council members have approved for the city to demolish so far, this could change.
Unless a private party steps forward to repurpose the more than 70-year-old Sudbury Community Arena, it’s likely to be torn down after the new arena/event centre opens in 2028.
City council has also yet to determine whether the Van Horne fire station will be extensively renovated or torn down for a new station to be built. Two additional sites are being reviewed as part of the Van Horne station project, west of Paris Street, south of Elm Street and east of the railway tracks.
The lands affected by the event centre project are enclosed by Brady Street to the north, Paris Street to the east, the railroad tracks to the south, and Grey Street to the west.
Although this now largely vacant stretch of land referred to as downtown Sudbury’s south district is largely municipally owned, there are still some properties in private hands.
The CP Rail station is protected under the federal Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act, and there have been no known plans by the city to purchase or expropriate the Sudbury Theatre Centre building or the Samaritan Centre building.
While the city purchased numerous properties to make way for the event centre project, Wacky Wings was the lone holdout and was expropriated by the municipality for a market value of $2.49 million (the total cost associated with expropriation is yet to be determined).
Earlier this year, the company purchased the old Northern Breweries Building to serve as their new restaurant space in Sudbury.
This week, owner Craig Burgess said they’re still on track to open by late spring 2026, as long as municipal approvals line up as anticipated.
Renovations to the building’s exterior earlier this year came as a result of a work order from the city for safety purposes, since pieces were falling off the side of the structure.
Behind-the-scenes work has continued, with various studies done and permits applied for, in order to get rolling on the structures’ partial demolition and reconstruction.
Burgess anticipates seeing on-site work to pick up within approximately one month.
“It all hinges on city approvals,” he said. “We’re ready to go. I wish it was rolling already.”
Some long-vacant structures on the property will need to be demolished due to their state of disrepair, Burgess said, while others will be retained.
“It’s obviously a building that’s been around Sudbury for a long time, very unique and it’s got a lot of old parts to it that need to come down, but there are some beautiful pieces to it that have significant heritage components to them,” he said. “We’re going to try and retain as many as possible.”
The building’s exterior will likely end up redone due to the need for insulation to be installed, but Burgess said that original building components within its exterior will be retained.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
