It’s been one year since a piece of New Westminster’s history was left in rubble after fire ripped through two heritage buildings on Columbia Street.
When fire crews arrived at the E.L. Lewis Block about 3:45 a.m. on Oct. 10, 2013, they found a building completely engulfed in flames. By the time the blaze was extinguished hours later, the 1904 E.L. Lewis Block (also known as the Crescent Block) and the 1899 Hambley Block were in ruins.
“The tenants we had in the stores, I feel so bad for them. They are the ones who took the brunt of it because they are down there creating a living for themselves,” said Terry Brine, who co-owns the E.L. Lewis property with Bill Lewis. “A lot have moved on.”
Some of the tenants retired, while others relocated to other spaces.
Brine and Lewis own the E.L. Lewis Block property, while Jim Chappell owned the Hambley Block. The fire exposed them to a whole new world of property ownership.
“What a headache,” Brine sighed. “The loss is one thing, but the things that have to go on behind the scenes to straighten it out is a nightmare. It really is.”
In addition to dealing with insurance companies, the property owners have had to get the site cleaned up – no small feat when heritage buildings containing asbestos are involved.
“The cleanup was a huge undertaking. The cleanup is completed on both sites. Jim just finished his. We had ours finished up a couple months ago,” Brine said. “Ours took about four months to finally get it cleared away. When the building went down it had some asbestos in it, very, very small amounts, but enough to determine that it was contaminated.”
Although heritage facades for buildings like the Trapp Block can be retained when redeveloped, that wasn’t in the cards for the Crescent or Hambley blocks. Nothing, not even a brick, could be salvaged from the E.L. Lewis Blocks. Everything had to be shipped to a special site in Alberta that deals with contaminated waste.
“Nothing, they wouldn’t let you onto the site,” Brine said. “There really wasn’t anything left at all. It was pretty well burnt to a crisp.”
Now that the sites are cleared, discussions for future plans for the property will heat up.
“It’s just a matter of finding out what the best use of the site would be. It’s a great location,” Brine said. “It’s still up in the air right now. It’s very, very early stages for that.”
Brine is hopeful that some decisions will start to be made about the future of the two sites within the next three or four months. A development corporation managing demolition of the Hambley Block erected a sign at the site, prompting some to think a proposal for the site was imminent.
Bev Grieve, the city’s director of development services, told The Record there have been “very preliminary” discussions about possibilities for the site.
“Our downtown community plan does speak to what we want to see in that area,” she said. “Essentially, whatever goes in there has to respect the buildings that are around that are significant heritage buildings. Whatever the design is, it has to take that into account. It can be a contemporary treatment of the building – often that makes the heritage buildings pop more. We don’t know at this point. We haven’t had those kinds of discussions.
As devastating as it was to lose two of the most prominent heritage buildings in the city’s downtown, Mayor Wayne Wright said it was fortunate the fire crews were able to stop the fire from spreading to adjacent buildings.
“I think now it’s a new day and we are trying to figure out what’s best to go in there,” he said. “I’m sure we are going to get people interested.”
Although it was upsetting to lose the buildings, Wright said it was impressive to see the way community members, businesses and property owners rallied together to help those who lost their businesses in the blaze. More than 20 businesses were located in the two buildings destroyed by the fire.
Insp. Doug Walcott of the New Westminster Police Department told The Record Oct. 10 that the fire is still under investigation. He couldn’t comment on whether it was suspicious or not.
“The file is just wrapping up,” he said. “We will probably be releasing something next week, but we are not there yet.
While the official cause has yet to be released, Brine is ready to move forward.
“A building is really what’s in it. That makes it a building, those are the people you have dealt with on a daily basis. In that respect, it was really tough. You move on,” he said. “You can’t live in the past. You have to deal with reality and this is what we got. No one got hurt. That’s everything.”
