Rubble remaining at the site of a devastating fire on Columbia Street will soon be hauled away.
Demolition of the overhead pedestrian walkway that connects a portion of the Hamley Block to the Front Street parkade paves the way for cleanup of the site.
“The site will be cleaned up,” said Bev Grieve, the city’s manager of development services. “That is what was needed to clean it up.”
Once the walkway is removed, demolition can begin on the portion of the Hamley Block that survived the fire but wasn’t structurally sound.
Site clearing that will get underway early in the new year will include some special precautions, such as ensuring that none of the vehicles transporting waste from the fire site have any contaminants on them as they exit the site. The debris from the heritage buildings contains asbestos.
“It’s a complicated process given the various elements that have to be taken into account, one of them being the removal of that walkway structure, which is attached to one of the buildings that needs to be demolished,” said Blair Fryer, the city’s manager of economic development and communications. “Then of course, there is the remediation challenges involving various government bodies such as Work Safe B.C. and B.C. Environment, the City of New Westminster.”
Community members have been writing their thoughts on what New Westminster means to them on a memory wall that’s been erected around the site. The City of New Westminster has collaborated with Tourism New Westminster and the Downtown New Westminster Business Improvement Area to launch the Moments Made in New West public art wall at the fire site.
Grieve said the city expects to begin discussing the future of the site with the owners of the two buildings destroyed in the fire.
“I am sure the landowners will be coming to the city and talking about the plans for that site. That hasn’t happened yet,” she said. “We have very good communication with those people.”
