Putting up fence to secure building in Summerside

The Journal Pioneer

SUMMERSIDE – A six-foot steel barbed-wire fence will soon surround a vacant building that has been targeted by vandals and some fear poses a safety concern.

“We’re tired of the kids breaking into the property,” Tim Banks says. “We haven’t run into this in other communities where we have buildings that are empty. We are as concerned about the security of the building as our neighbours are.”

Tim Banks owns the abandoned Centennial Pool/ Holland College complex at Granville Street and Ryan Street. Vandals have spray-painted it, set fires inside, smashed windows and damaged security systems.

Work is set to begin next week. “We don’t want it to look like a prison or anything like that, so the fence is going to be closer to the building, as opposed to taking it out to the road. It’s going to be set back 20 to 25 feet from the building,” explained Banks. “We’re still going to maintain the grass and the landscaping outside of the fence.”

He wouldn’t say if a video surveillance system will be in place but warned all trespassers will be charged. “No matter how many times we’ve boarded it up they’ve come along with crowbars and pulled it off, got inside the building. You just can’t monitor them once they’re inside the building. We had an electrical alarm system there in the building but it just continually got ripped apart,” added Banks. “Simply, we are not going to put up with it.”

The fence will only be in place until work on the site, expected to begin in the spring, is complete. There is asbestos in the roof system but Banks says it poses no risk. “We may leave the roof system there and just knock all the walls and the partitions,” he added. “It’s not a loose asbestos, so there’s no harm in it being there.”

Plans are still in place to construct housing units at the rear of the property and APM is looking for a tenant for the existing structure.
Banks said a retailer was lined up to move in but, with current economic conditions, is taking a “wait-and-see” approach.