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Call made to demolish burned out Jean Burns building in downtown Nanaimo

Oct 20, 2016 | 1:57 PM

NANAIMO — The owner of the badly damaged Jean Burns building in downtown Nanaimo wants the structure demolished and rebuilt.

Rick Hyne of Crankshaw Holdings says they hope to have the badly burned building torn down as soon as possible following a site visit on Tuesday by an abatement contractor and environmental consultant, who both made that recommendation.

“Because the cost to abate it will probably be more than the cost to demolish it. Those are considerations for us and the fact that any type of rebuild will have to meet current building codes,” said Hyne. “That would be prohibitively expensive.”

Hyne says while their insurance company has a stake in the building’s future, he notes that city council has over-riding power and can order the building to be cleaned up or demolished. A city of Nanaimo staff report indicates that council has the ability to declare the damaged building a nuisance property which would open up several options for council, including ordering that it be torn down.

The nearly 29,000 sq/ft building was charred in a massive fire last March 30. Several agencies including WorksafeBC, the City of Nanaimo and insurance companies have been evaluating the site, which has remained dormant since the fire. An electrical malfunction in a ceiling fan was blamed on the huge blaze that ripped through the heritage building, destroying 15 businesses. Hyne says numerous break-ins to the site have become an increasing concern and he recognizes frustration shown by city council and downtown merchants toward the eye-sore of a site.

“This is becoming costly for us because we keep boarding things up and they keep circumventing our efforts…they’re actually breaking windows to get out of the building having found themselves caught inside.”

Hyne appeared before city council on Monday night and fielded several questions from councillors concerned about the deteriorating property.

“If there was a noticeable presence around the outside of the building for a period of time that might discourage further attempts,” said councillor Ian Thorpe.

Hyne replied by stating security is expensive and pointed to an example of a daytime break-in to the old Acme Restaurant portion of the site where nobody noticed the crime. Hyne says he fully understands community frustration about a lack of progress on the site, but says they are bound by a process.

“There are confinements to what we can do because Worksafe is on one side saying ‘you can’t go in there’, and our insurance company saying, ‘we’re not ready to rule on this yet.’”

Hyne says there isn’t much that they can do during this limbo period and that they’ll attempt to keep the site secure on an interim basis.

Council voted to re-visit options on what should be done with the Jean Burns building if no action is taken within 60 days.