The saga of two Sudbury buildings has come to a close, with the owners behind Wacky Wings purchasing the old Northern Breweries building on Lorne Street to house the restaurant.
Wacky Wings owner Craig Burgess told Sudbury.com that the purchase happened approximately three weeks ago and that their intention is to open “as soon as possible.”
“We’re very eager to roll up our sleeves,” he said, adding that, optimistically, “I’m hoping we can be fully open by this time next year.”
The downtown Sudbury restaurant closed last month after the city expropriated its land to make way for a new downtown arena/events centre and as-yet undetermined private ancillary services.
The city purchased all other affected properties, with Wacky Wings the sole holdout. Burgess had hoped they’d be able to retain the building and that the restaurant would continue to complement the city’s downtown arena, but city council had other plans.
Although the legal mechanics behind expropriation are ongoing and more expenses are anticipated, the cost to the city to date is $2.49 million.
Meanwhile, the old Northern Breweries building formally shuttered in 2006 following a two-year effort by its owner to keep it open.
The property was then purchased by Greg Oldenburg, who spent years trying to develop it as a condominium project called Brewer Lofts. Oldenburg later proposed the building as a venue for a new Art Gallery of Sudbury and listed it for sale in 2023.
The real estate listing cited the building’s total area as being approximately 60,000 square feet and the land as being 2.1 acres.
“Some portions of it we will remove and some portions we’ll retain,” Burgess said, adding that they’ll be primarily using existing structures.
“There are some parts to the building that need to get torn down, and there are some parts in great shape — or, nothing’s in great shape, but we’ll get it into great shape.”
The intention is to retain various heritage structures, with Burgess noting that the brickwork in the building is “beautiful,” and that they’ll complement it with the same kind of wooden interior their shuttered downtown location had.
“This is a bigger space than we were in before, so we’re going to make it wackier,” he said.
“Basically, if you can imagine everything that was in Wacky’s moving over, but they’ll be a bigger piece to it .. such as more games, bowling, axe throwing and bunch of other fun things that I’m going to save to disclose at a future date from an attractions perspective.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.