Timeline in Place for Demolition of City-owned Building

With permitting now secured, the process for demolishing the former hotel/restaurant/beverage room/vendor at 156-9th Street can begin, the City of Brandon confirmed today.

The downtown building has been vacant since the spring of 2011 after a number of health and safety orders forced its closure. The City of Brandon subsequently acquired the property through a tax sale process in the fall of 2011.

In confirming the demolition timelines today, City of Brandon Engineer and General Manager of Development Services Ted Snure noted taking down the building is necessary to ensure public safety.

“The City of Brandon has a number of by-laws in place relating to vacant and derelict buildings and we want to ensure that we are in compliance with these bylaws, as well as the Workplace Safety and Health requirements that led to the building’s closure in the first place,” Snure said.

The first step in the demolition process will be an evaluation to determine if any of the building’s contents can be salvaged for sale or donation purposes.

Crews will then spend July and August undertaking the removal of any salvageable components and the removal of any building material that require specialized handling or might be considered hazardous.

With the current timeline of demolition tender advertisement scheduled for the fall, Snure said it’s anticipated demolition will be completed before year’s end.

“We will be looking for a firm that has experience in this type of demolition, given the building’s close proximity to other structures, and can undertake the work within our identified timeline,” he said. “Once the building is down and the debris clean-up is complete, we will undertake soil testing because previous uses of the site were ones that could have involved a component of contamination. However, it is still the City’s hope that by early 2013, a new developable/marketable piece of land will exist in Brandon’s downtown.”

The demolition of the building will be funded from the City of Brandon’s land acquisition reserve.