The final demolition of the old Eaton’s department store building to make way for the construction of the MTS Centre progressed quickly in the first full week of January activity. Large excavators working from the ground up pulled down most of what remained of the outside walls of the building down to the first floor.
The machinery operated on top of ramps built from the rubble of earlier demolition activity in order to reach up to the height of the fifth floor walls. To keep disruption in the downtown to a minimum, the demolition crews worked through the evening and overnight for most of the week when there was little or no vehicle and pedestrian traffic in the area.
The steel superstructure that supported the two escalator columns that once carried shoppers up and down through the department store were successfully pulled down in the last twenty four hours. The only part of the building that remains standing at this time is a section of the exterior wall of the building along Donald Street. It will be brought down as part of the work plan for tonight. The City of Winnipeg will close Donald Street between Portage and Graham from 6:00 pm until 5:00 am Saturday morning in order to complete the work around the perimeter.
By Monday, January 13th the structure will be essentially leveled to a pile of rubble The preservation of a number of the Tyndall stone window bay surrounds and the delivery of several truckloads of the distinctive red brick from the exterior of the building to Habitat For Humanity will be the final salvage activities before the demolition is completed.
True North plans to mount one of the window bays in a display in the new sports and entertainment centre commemorating the part Eaton’s played in the social history of Winnipeg’s downtown. The City of Winnipeg is storing the Tyndall for reuse in a future downtown project. Habitat For Humanity will clean the bricks for sale to anyone interested in a memento of the old building. Proceeds from the sale will be used to fund Habitat’s mission to develop safe affordable communities for people in need by building and renovating houses.
The demolition phase, which started in August 2002, is now about 80% complete. The sorting of metal, steel, wood and rubble and the removal of all traces of the building from the property will finish early in February. The first signs of construction activity will appear by the middle of February with work on shoring of the streets around the excavation and the pouring of the first piles for the Sports and Entertainment Centre.
[MTS Centre Construction Demolition Archive]
