Inn at Westview property manager Jack Barr has responded to City of Powell River council with a letter outlining the building owner’s issues with taking the ramshackle structure down.
Barr’s letter was the first time council has officially heard from the property manager on the potential demolition of the building.
“We appreciate that most people don’t have the proper perspective to fully understand the complexities of this issue,” stated Barr. “They just want action.”
At its November 15 committee of the whole meeting, council directed city staff to provide a report outlining steps necessary to impose remedial action on the building, including a timeline, and to send a letter to Barr’s management company, American Investments, informing him the building has become a problem.
According to Barr’s letter, the amount of asbestos in the building’s walls, identified in a recent environmental assessment, is “the main reason for the delays to this point, and the reason that costs have doubled in the remediation of the property.”
Cost estimates to take the building down have varied and are higher than originally expected, according to the letter.
“We too, as stated many times previously, would like nothing better than to see it gone,” wrote Barr.
Barr stated he has had two companies provide quotes for the remediation of the building and another one planned for mid-December, but anonymous complaints to WorkSafe BC over concerns with the building’s structural integrity have restricted access to the building for a third estimate. American Investments now needs to have the structure assessed before anyone can be permitted to enter.
If forced to take the building down, building owner Seaboard Hotels could face bankruptcy, stated Barr in his letter.
Barr wrote that once Seaboard is able to ascertain “reliable assessments” as to the costs involved, the company may look at trying to sell the property “as is.”
“We appreciate the time this is taking and council’s frustration surrounding it, but we’re sure you can see that it is not a cut-and-dry issue,” wrote Barr. “We want to assure you that we are working on a process; however it is not going to happen overnight, nor is Seaboard or we going to be pressured into making a decision that could have detrimental ramifications.”
At the Tuesday, December 13, committee of the whole meeting, councillor Rob Southcott said the time to choose whether to do something with the dilapidated building has long passed.
“We’re at a point where the inn is headed in one particular direction,” said Southcott. “The only way this is going is that more water is getting in, creating more damage inside with greater potential cost and liability.”
Councillor Maggie Hathaway responded by telling the committee that as Barr continues to work on the process, so too should city staff.
“We have some other properties in the area that we’re moving forward on,” she said, referring to a private residence on Joyce Avenue near Duncan Street. “We need to move forward on this one as well.”
City of Powell River chief administrative office Mac Fraser told the committee that staff is proceeding with council’s request to provide a report that will lay out steps to proceed with dealing with Seaboard’s property, including a commercial property appraisal. Fraser said that report will be presented in January.
