Cleanup of one of the Columbia Street fire sites is set to soon begin.
Joan Drabyk, the city’s permit coordinator, said a demolition permit has been issued for the Copp’s site at 638 Columbia St. A permit has yet to be issued for the adjacent Hamley Block site.
“They have decided not to go together. It was too complicated with the second site because there was a building on the front and a building on the back, with two different insurance policies” she said. “It’s now got a little bit complicated.”
Because the demolition permit for the Copp’s Shoes site was issued on Feb. 12, Drabyk anticipates that activity will soon get underway. She’s been told it should take a week or two to clean up the Crescent Block site.
“The other site, hopefully it will happen fairly soon,” Drabyk told The Record. “They are going to take it down to the foundation. They won’t be taking the foundation right away because we don’t know whether that is supporting Columbia Street at this point.”
When looking at the site, Drabyk said it appears some of the building’s old brickwork goes up against the city sidewalk.
“Once we can get the site cleaned, we can get some engineers in there to try and determine where the next steps are,” she said.
The City of New Westminster is anxious to see the Columbia Street sties cleaned up as soon as possible.
“It’s a hazardous site, for one thing. We don’t want people getting in there, and it’s an eyesore,” Drabyk said. “It will be nice to get it cleaned up.”
On Oct. 10, fire tore through the Crescent Block (also known as the E.L. Lewis block that housed Copp’s Shoes for many years) and spread to the Hamley Block, destroying two of the most prominent heritage buildings on Columbia Street.
More than 20 businesses were located in the two buildings destroyed by the fire, an additional 25 in the area were impacted by smoke and soot damage.
While the buildings had separate insurance policies, Drabyk said the tenants had their own insurance policies.
“That is why we haven’t seen it happen. I think the cleanup bill is coming in a lot higher than they expected,” she said. “I am not sure of figures, but I have heard it could be chewing up most of the insurance.”
Once mobilized on site, a restoration company will begin cleanup and will ship the fire-damaged debris to a site that handles contaminated materials.
“I believe he is basically going to bin it all and ship it to Alberta,” she said. “It’s all contaminated, so it all has to either be sorted and dealt with or all shipped out of province.”
A representative for the restoration company set to clean up the site couldn’t be reached for comment before The Record’s deadline.
Bev Grieve, the city's manager of development services, said the city hasn't received any proposals for the two sites on Columbia Street.
"There has been nothing come forward," she said. "The two owners are still working through the process. We do not have proposals or plans."
