Downtown Neepawa landmark demolished

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Published on Thursday, April 7, 2016

Photo by Eoin Devereux. By mid-day on April 6,  demolished building materials were being loaded and hauled away.

By Eoin Devereux

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

A familiar structure along Neepawa’s Mountain Avenue has been torn down. On Tuesday, Apr. 5, the garage for the former Murray’s of Neepawa building was demolished. The adjoining showroom remains intact on the property and there are no plans to knock that building down.

Dr. Andrew Aiken owns the property and said that the demolition was done to clear that specific portion of the land for future development. Dr. Aiken would like to subdivide the property, selling the portion where the showroom resides, while maintaining the former garage property for a proposed 18 suite housing complex currently in the early stages of development. No timeline for construction has been confirmed, but Dr. Aiken would like to see the foundation for the proposal put in place by the fall of this year or early spring of 2017.

For years, the building was a part of the Murray’s of Neepawa car dealership and garage. Earl Murray originally launched Murray’s Garage back in 1932. It was renamed Murray’s of Neepawa in 1964 and remained in operation until 2008 when it became part of the Dunn Murray Group of dealerships and was renamed McLaughlin GM.  In 2012, McLaughlin’s moved out of the building to its new location along Main Street west.