Demolition begins of Winters Hotel in Gastown following delays

Demolition of the fire-damaged Winters Hotel in Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood is now underway, after being delayed a little more than a day.

On Thursday morning, crews and heavy equipment began work on the demolition that is expect to affect residents and businesses in the area until at least Friday night, and possibly through to Saturday.

The City of Vancouver, which has taken control of the project from the building’s owner due to timeline concerns and the unstable condition of the building, said Wednesday the initial delay was due to safety plans being finalized.

On Thursday morning, delays were reported again due to an ongoing police incident inside the building, although details were not clear. Vancouver police officers conducted a search to ensure no one was inside the building after reports someone had illegally entered.

#Breaking Demolition work officially under way at Winters Hotel in Gastown. Listen for more live at https://t.co/OwqbKECRU9 pic.twitter.com/cybkpOg2Ah

— Martin MacMahon (@martinmacmahon) April 21, 2022

One local business owner says he was told work would begin at 7 a.m., but at 8 a.m., nothing has happened yet.

“I see a bunch of police, I was trying to get to work … nobody knows, there is a bunch of people … but the building is still standing … nothing is going on, I don’t know,” Brioche Ristorante & Catering owner Eduardo Bilardello told CityNews.

Police eventually cleared the building, and work commenced shortly before 11:00 a.m..

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Read more: Sprinklers turned off at Winters Hotel days before devastating fire: investigation

The delays add to frustrations from those in the area, as it involves planned outages and ongoing street closures surrounding several blocks near the building site on Abbott and Water streets.

Bilardello says the street closures mean a major financial hit to his business, and he hasn’t gotten any direction from BC Hydro or the City as to whether or not his catering company will lose power.

“I just opened this on Jan. 1, thinking you know that Gastown was going to be somehow normal because in recent years it has been a disaster,” he said.

WorkSafeBC had not signed off on the project until late Wednesday.

“There were some issues raised with some details of our demolition plan yesterday. We are working with WorkSafeBC to resolve those. Unfortunately, we didn’t get them resolved as earlier as we would have liked to today,” City of Vancouver Chief Building Official Saul Schwebs said late Wednesday.

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The delay meant many local businesses and residents were inconvenienced as they prepared for power outages and road closures Wednesday which did not happen. Schwebs was asked about the financial hit even a one day loss has on the already struggling businesses in the area and admits the earlier timeline was an estimate and the delays are unfortunate.

“I apologize to everybody who was inconvenienced by that and I apologize that we can’t be more concrete with our schedule,” he said.

Meanwhile, local bars and restaurants in the area may see extended impacts through to the weekend.

“We anticipate that the fencing will be removed and the street will be cleaned up hopefully by end of day on Friday, but given that we lost …today …some of that work might stretch until Saturday,” Schwebs said.

He says the city also didn’t want to inconvenience residents further by turning power on and off Wednesday. Power has instead been shut off as of 7 a.m. Thursday. An exact timeline of the planned power outage has not been detailed by BC Hydro.

Former residents want their belongings back

Many agitated residents of the Winters Hotel showed up Wednesday, saying they were not told they would not be allowed in to reclaim their possessions.

“They will not let me have any of my stuff. My husband’s ashes in there, every picture [of] my children [is] in there, all I have left is … is in that building right now,” Brandy Mingo said.

On Tuesday, Schwebs said an assessment concluded that the building was unsafe for anyone to enter prior to being demolished.

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“They said a third party engineer went in there yesterday and said that they were going to salvage whatever rooms are salvageable. When I get here today they told me no, they’re not doing that. They’re not salvaging anything, nobody gets anything,” Mingo said.

Schwebs was asked about reports that residents were breaking into the building to try and get their belongings on Wednesday morning, but he says he was not aware of any incidents and they did not contribute to the delays.

The Vancouver Police Department said Wednesday that demonstrators entered the fenced-off area, and one person had entered the building and left, but did not say if that person was facing any possible charges.

The more than 70 former residents of the SRO have been offered housing in the Tawow building (formally the Columbia Hotel) down the street, which is also managed by Atira Property Management.

Another 73 residents in the nearby Gastown Hotel have also been given temporary housing, as the building was evacuated due to noxious smoke caused by the fire. Once the Winters Hotel is torn down, officials say they will be able to offer information as to when Gastown Hotel residents could possibly return home.

Meanwhile, several of the destroyed businesses will be waiting to see if anything can be reclaimed from the demolition’s aftermath.

Schwebs says he walked several business owners through the process personally and talked about items which would be prioritized for recovery. He invited any other business owners to arrive on site Thursday to speak with him directly.

Some of the business include The Flying Pig Restaurant, Australian Boot Company, Bruce Eyewear, and the Gowon Cafe.

With files from Hana Mae Nassar, Martin MacMahon, and Tarnjit Parmar