A couple of times last year I wrote about the effort by Hennepin County to convert aging area motels into homeless shelters.
One of these was the old Metro Inn on Lyndale Ave. in south Minneapolis. Tragically, the building went up in flames this week in a fire that began in a neighboring property. Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) reports,
The four-alarm fire on the 5600 block of Lyndale Avenue South spread from a garage to two adjacent residential buildings — including a former motel that was recently converted to affordable housing.
I stopped by the site this evening. Here’s the garage, complete with the burned-out cars,
That’s the Metro Inn on the right. The fire damage to the motel,
You can see the apartment building in the background. MPR reports,
According to the Minneapolis Fire Department, crews responded around 11:24 p.m. Wednesday to a fire in a detached garage. The first crews on the scene found the garage engulfed in flames and the fire spreading to a three-story apartment building on one side, and the former motel on the other.
MPR reports that the cause of the fire is still under investigation. Someone with a theory wrote this on the parking lot,
“Methheads Did It”
I guess we’ll find out.