Cambridge mayor says the city is ‘in mourning’ with the demolition of the Preston Springs Hotel

While the cleanup continues at the site where the former Preston Springs Hotel stood for over 130 years at King and Fountain, Cambridge Mayor Kathryn McGarry is speaking to the emergency order that was issued to demolish the historic building. 

McGarry was a guest on the Mike Farwell Show on 570 NEWS Wednesday morning to further explain how the emergency order was issued. 

“Myself, council, staff and the public are very sad that this building had to come down,” said McGarry, “there is going to be a period of mourning. It's been one of the most iconic buildings, certainly one of my favourite as the former president of Heritage Cambridge.”

The Chief Building Official for the City of Cambridge, Dennis Purcell issued an emergency order to demolish the building Christmas Eve. McGarry said that Purcell is able to issue an emergency order under Ontario's Building Code and he can act independently of council and the city to order the demolition of a building to protect public safety.

“Imagine if the unthinkable happened, that our worst fears happened, and a member of our community or a first responder had lost their life in that building – we'd be talking about not mourning a building, but mourning the loss of a life. That was his key reason why he said he did what he did and when he did it.”

McGarry said that she didn't want a situation in Cambridge similar to what happened in Elliot Lake eight years ago where one of its malls collapsed. 

“The community wouldn't just be asking about the timing [of the demolition] or the building coming down, they'd be wondering why people didn't step up and protect public safety and that there was a loss of life. That is the primary reason why Purcell did what he did and he was very clear about the timing. This was not a mayor and council decision. We absolutely had no say in timing, the decision or anything else. It's a rarity in Cambridge.”

This is the first emergency order that has been issued for a demolition in the city since McGarry was elected as mayor in 2018.

“When a CBO issues an emergency order for a demolition or to protect public safety, it's his decision alone. He can act independently from mayor, council, and staff in order to do what he's been given authority to do under the provincial legislation.”

McGarry said that no discussion can take place with mayor or council to change that.

“The only thing that can happen is sometimes a court injunction, but that's a process that you have to have it pretty well tied-up in order for a judge to even rule against something with public safety and I don't know the details behind that.”

Throughout the interview, the mayor kept pointing to the situation of the mall collapse in Elliot Lake as an example of what she didn't want to happen in Cambridge with the Preston Springs Hotel. 

“Imagine if you will, if the mayor and council at the time in Elliot Lake and the owner of the Algo Centre Mall had heeded the building inspector's dire warnings that this building was structurally unsound and may come down – had they heeded that – then the loss of life and injuries that resulted, as well as the long-standing litigation, insurance costs, and public inquiry that we paid for didn't happen, imagine what the outcome would have been there. We would have never known about it, people wouldn't have lost their lives and they wouldn't be embroiled in a long-standing legal battle over who was culpable in not evacuating that building and fixing the structural unsoundness. This is exactly what we didn't want to happen here.” 

Two people died and 22 people were injured when the roof of the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake, Ont. collapsed in June 2012. 

When asked if anyone at any point raised a question or asked for pause when the order came about on Dec. 24th, McGarry said that she and council found out Dec. 23. 

“When we were informed on the 23rd, we were told that it's an emergency order and nothing mayor and council could do could pause it or change the outcome, it was a sole decision by the CBO and we could do nothing about it,” said McGarry, “if you read the act, especially section 15.10 of the Ontario Building Code Act, it is very clearly laid out that nothing that municipal councils can do can stop, slow down or pause the process once the CBO has decided on this course. Mr. Purcell then issued the emergency order on the morning of the 24th to demolish the building.”

McGarry said it takes a few weeks for the CBO to put this process in place and even though the timing wasn't ideal, that just happened to be when the process was ready to carry out the demolition. McGarry said that she had no concerns with the way this order transpired.

“I do not,” said McGarry, “we did hear and had a presentation done a year ago from Mr. Purcell who had ordered the owner [Haastown Holdings] to do a structural engineer analysis of the structural integrity of the Preston Springs Hotel and then last January, the city under the direction of Mr. Purcell went in and did a peer review and suggested it needed to be demolished then and since then he has been quite concerned about it.” 

McGarry said that council voted against an application that the owner of the hotel put forward to council to demolish the building in August 2020.

“We'd already decided to follow the appeal that was launched by the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario and wait for the conservation review board hearing [which wasn't known at that time] and the CRB had not given the city timing and at that time Mr. Purcell in his capacity as CBO as he said in previous interviews – that he did go back with a structural engineer to reassess the building because it's been almost a year and at that point he had decided to follow through and issue an emergency order for demolition,” said McGarry, “council and mayor did not know about it at that time, he followed his independent process, we were informed on the 23rd and the consensus around council at that time that Mr. Purcell would answer all the media requests which is what transpired until this past week.”

McGarry said that this has been a process underway for 30 years and she said she had no concerns with how the order transpired. 

“We will always go back as council and discuss major things that have happened or situations that we want to address to see if there's any changes we need to make in our own process (…) we are always looking for ways that situations can be improved upon. We did respect the process that the CBO undertook under his authority in order to see the emergency order issued and whatever we felt about it didn't make any difference about it. The process is not well understood by the community.”

McGarry said she is incredibly concerned about some of the negative and offensive comments that she has seen on social media about this whole process.

“Some of the vicious, negative, offensive and sometimes libelist comments on social media around this issue has been concerning,” said McGarry, “people don't tend to understand the facts of this situation – they sometimes don't accept them and it's very disappointing to see that the integrity of the CBO, mayor and council is being attacked in a situation that we had no choice and in fact, the CBO said he had no choice but to issue the order.”

The mayor and council will review the situation and they will also continue to upgrade and update procedural bylaws.

McGarry said that her faith in CBO Dennis Purcell has not been tested through this whole process.

“I know he has lost sleep over this and I also know that he has an excellent reputation (…) he's in a tough spot, he doesn't necessarily want to cause a heritage building to come down but he also has that sacred responsibility to ensure public safety (…) I have full faith in him on that.” 

Mr. Purcell acted in good faith according to the mayor but she said that these are processes that she'd like to review and see if there's a different way council can manage communication.

“We can take steps to look forward to see what other heritage structures may be at risk, make sure they are protected, make sure that we can review our minimum property standards and to see that they are adequate and I would challenge that they are.”

McGarry said this was a tragedy that it came down to the demolition of the vacant hotel but that public safety was the core of the reason why the structure had to be torn down. 

“If the building didn't have issues with structural integrity, I would imagine that the Springs would still be standing.”