Still waiting on brewery demolition

Questions remain among the general public as to when demolition of the vacant Northern Breweries building on Bay Street will begin.

In answer to those questions, City of Sault Ste. Marie Chief Building Official Don Maki told SooToday.com “the developer (who purchased the property) filed an application for a demolition permit.  We need five or six items of information from them yet to issue that permit, so we’ve extended that date to have permit in hand by March 22.”

“We know it’s going to happen, we’re not too concerned it’s not going to happen.”

The property was purchased by Toronto-based developer Nirmala Singh in April 2011, with the intention of demolishing the old brewery and erecting a multi-storey tower with commercial space on the lower floors and residential condos on the upper floors.

We contacted Singh’s Toronto office Friday, but she was not available for comment.

A demolition order, to tear down a part of the vacant property severely damaged in a fire February 7 was issued by the City February 8, and it was hoped that work would be done by March 4.

Maki told us the City still needs information from Singh’s company in order to finalize plans for necessary road closures when that demolition takes place.

Maki added “there’s a lot of work behind the scenes to get things in order for a demolition permit, so they had to do a little research with the Ministry of the Environment, where they will be dumping material and that sort of thing.”

“We’ll be able to issue a permit shortly.  We want them to have the demolition permit by March 22.”

Shane Corbett, estimator and project coordinator for T.C. Contracting Inc., which has the demolition contract, told us “we’re waiting to hear from the developer.  I’ve got the equipment ready.  We’re just waiting for the nod.”