Heavy equipment and disposal bins have begun to arrive at the former Knights Inn and Sticky Fingers site in downtown Barrie, with the two buildings soon to become nothing but a memory.
Barricades are now up around the two former businesses on Dunlop Street West, across from the old Barrie Central Collegiate site.
Demolition officially started on Wednesday, Aug. 21, but none of the exterior walls have been touched yet. That's tentatively set to happen on Wednesday, Sept. 4.
The razing of the buildings is expected to be a "slow process," according to a city spokesperson, and will take approximately two months to complete.
And never ones to let a good opportunity escape them, the site was also recently used by the city's police and fire departments for on-site training for real-life scenarios.
The buildings are being torn down as part of the first phase of the Kidd's Creek culvert replacement construction project. There are no road closures required for the demolition.
The Kidd's Creek culvert replacement project will allow for an open-channel design both north and south of Dunlop Street between Eccles Street and High Street, which will reduce the potential for flooding in this area, which supports the city's climate change adaptation strategy.
The area often experiences flooding during significant rain storms.
The city is working to reduce potential flooding by "up-sizing" culverts and where possible, eliminating culverts altogether by creating natural channels, referred to as "daylighting," so they can better handle major storms, including 100-year flows.
Kidd’s Creek flows from headwaters near Cundles Road, through Sunnidale Park, and downtown Barrie to its outlet at Kempenfelt Bay on Lake Simcoe.
But to make way for that to happen, the two once-popular businesses must come down.
Sticky Fingers, well known for its wings and ribs as well as live music, opened in 2003 at a location on Essa Road (remnants of the former locale are still visible with the old sign still standing in front of the Barrie Curling Club) and operated there until 2014. That building was demolished and the operation moved to Dunlop Street, which is also now faces the wrecking ball.
Meanwhile, the Knights Inn was once a popular watering hole and gathering place, when it opened as the Brookdale Park Inn in June 1964. There had even once been a private zoo on the site, according to a Remember This? column by Mary Harris back in January when BarrieToday first reported news of the demolition.
The Brookdale Inn held an open house on June 27, 1964 to officially unveil the 28-unit hotel to the public.
"The unique exterior décor still stands out today," Harris says in her column. "The stonework on the outer walls was known as feather rock, an ultra lightweight lava rock specially imported from California."
It was later rebranded the Brookdale Park Inn.
Fast-forward 55 years and the renamed Knights Inn had recently been used as part of the Salvation Army Barrie Bayside Mission Centre's family shelter hotel program. The organization rented eight units at the Dunlop Street address, but those in the program have since been relocated to other accommodations.
The Salvation Army and Redwood Park Communities are also in the process of building new transitional housing in the city's north end.
A ground-breaking ceremony was held in May for the $3-million project at the Lillian Crescent site behind the Salvation Army Citadel. Construction is expected to take 18 months to build. Once complete, the two-storey building will have 12 fully furnished, two-bedroom apartments for families facing a housing crisis.
