The City of Greater Sudbury has secured the final piece of the puzzle for the Downtown Sudbury events centre project, and now owns the Wacky Wings property.
City Growth and Infrastructure general manager Tony Cecutti made this announcement during a city council meeting earlier this week, noting that all lands for the project have been secured.
A city spokesperson later clarified to Sudbury.com that an initial exchange of money is in the works as part of the expropriation process and will be disclosed shortly.
“The city has allowed Wacky Wings some time to move from the existing property and the city is expected to take possession in March of 2025,” they clarified. “The final costs to acquire the property under the expropriations process will not be known for some time.”
Although all other property owners affected by the city’s downtown development plan agreed to sell, the owners of Wacky Wings declined, prompting the city to expropriate the lone holdout.
Between property acquisitions and demolition costs, the city has spent approximately $16.3 million to date, with approximately $4.2 million remaining in their budget for these efforts.
The land is slated to be eaten up by a new events centre expected to open in 2028, with private ancillary services anticipated to take up the balance of this land.
Wacky Wings owner Craig Burgess said that he’d hoped his restaurant would have been one of these ancillary services to help complement the new events centre, as the business currently does with the aging Sudbury Community Arena.
With this no longer appearing to be in the cards, at least for the time being, Burgess’ main goal is to make as seamless a transition into whatever their next location ends up being as possible.
“We don’t want to leave, but knowing we have to, we certainly want to stay as long as possible,” he told Sudbury.com this week, adding that they were originally slated to be out last month, until the city granted them an extension to March.
Thankful for the extension, he said he’d like for the city to help him find a new property, which is something some other municipalities offer when they go through the expropriation process.
“We’ve been there for a long time and have a loyal fanbase, and it’s not our choosing to vacate,” he said. Although they’ve been on the lookout for properties and have even put an offer on a few, he said they’ve yet to secure a new location.
Business has suffered since the city started buying up downtown properties, Burgess said. While some people may have assumed Wacky Wings was closed, others were reluctant to buy gift cards or book birthday parties due to the business’ unclear future.
Things have improved now that demolition crews are no longer as active in the area, but he said business is still not up to what it used to be before the city’s events centre work began.
Even so, he said, it’s business as usual — albeit without quite as much business — until at least March. They might ask for another extension at that time.
Ground is anticipated to break on the events centre in 2026, but it’s unclear what wiggle room might exist for Wacky Wings’ ability to stay, given such things as building demolition and whatever preliminary ground work may need to take place.
Like the city, Burgess isn’t sharing any numbers associated with expropriation just yet, but did clarify, “the cost to move us is substantially more than the best offer they made ... For us to move, we have to get the property, and we also have to move that entire concept over to this new location.”
He added, “The more reasonable and economically we can make this happen mutually will benefit both sides.”
Wacky Wings has approximately 50-70 staff at any given time.
According to the city’s expropriation policy, the city will present the owner with an offer which includes:
- The market value of the land
- Damages attributable to disturbance
- Damages for injurious affection
- Any special difficulties in relocation
The Market Value of the Land is defined as the “amount that the land might be expected to realize if sold on the open market by a willing seller to a willing buyer,” and is determined by a third party.
When all is said and done, Burgess said that he’d still be interested in seeing Wacky Wings join the downtown events centre project as one of its private ancillary services.
“We would certainly be more than enthused to go and fit into the plans,” he said. “There’s a lot of land down there (the city) now owns, and we’d love to be part of the redevelopment.”
During this week’s City of Greater Sudbury update on the events centre project, Cecutti noted that although there was “a bit of slippage on the schedule” due to procurements, he was still optimistic they could make up the time down the line and maintain a 2028 opening date.
The city is currently in the process of prequalifying a venue operator, and they still anticipate selecting an events centre location within Downtown Sudbury’s south district in January.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
