The City of Flin Flon is moving closer to knocking down the Flin Flon Hotel, the once-bustling Main Street landmark that has been closed for decades.
A tender was posted online by the City of Flin Flon, a formal request for proposals that shows that the City intends to knock down the building, which has been closed since 1998 and been in a mostly derelict state ever since.
The tender, which was shared online April 4, shows that the project will be larger than initially thought.
The City is planning to not only take down the Flin Flon Hotel building, located at the intersection of Main Street and First Avenue, but also several buildings south of the hotel, including the former Urban Tot and Edie’s Closet clothing stores. Both buildings are located immediately south of the hotel and are physically connected to the larger former hotel, with firewalls between them.
“[The City] is seeking proposals from reputable and experienced demolition contractors to undertake the controlled demolition of the Flin Flon Hotel, and the three buildings next to the hotel in the south,” reads the request for proposals.
The City’s estimated closing date for the tender is listed as April 21. Word of a successful bid will likely come either later this month or in May.
An estimated date for when the hotel and the nearby buildings may be demolished has not yet been set, but elected leaders have said that the current plan is to knock the building down this summer. The City will then seek to pursue possible construction projects with that land, including temporary use as a parking lot while future uses are determined.
The Flin Flon Hotel was officially closed to the public in 1998. The building and property has shuffled through different owners since, but none were able to fully renovate and open the building. The building's roof has been in need of repairs for years and, most recently, windows for the second-floor suites in the rear of the building had been boarded shut. Mould was visible in the concrete on the main floor walls of the hotel - other portions of the hotel were water damaged, due to leaks from the damaged roof. Tens of thousands of dollars were also owed as back taxes on the building as of 2019.
Word of the demolition was first announced last month at a council meeting by Mayor George Fontaine, who said the building had more than outlived its use to the community.
“It is more than time. It's not just there - nobody's picked it up for a number of years, nobody's going to pick it up and it has become a difficulty for policing, it's become a difficulty for lots of things," said the mayor during the March 7 meeting.
"The technicalities of how it comes down, I guess the people who demolish it will have to decide on that."
