Braun building faces $5-million dilemma

A nearly $5-million difference in repair costs could keep students and faculty out of Lakehead University’s burned out Braun building longer than planned.

Michael Pawlowski, the school’s vice-president of administration and finance, said while reconstruction prep work continues unabated, the building remains a gutted shell as the city’s planning department and the university’s insurance company determine whether or not the Braun Building should be rebuilt to today’s building code, or grandfathered to the code in place when it was first constructed in the 1960s.

"There is section 11 of the Ontario building code that stipulates if it’s a minor reconstruction it can be grandfathered. The city is, I believe, contending that it has to be built to current building code standards," Pawlowski said.

A call to the city’s planning department for confirmation was not immediately returned.

The original plan was to have the building open in time for the 2009/2010 school year, and that plan was later readjusted to coincide with the start of the upcoming academic But if work doesn’t start within the next month, those plans will likely have to be shelved too.

Pawlowski said the city is looking for a number of additions to be put in place before a permit will be granted, adding it’s the insurance company, and not the university, that is debating the city’s stance.

"Under the current building codes things would have to be done that were not in the original building, and a prime example of that would be a sprinkler system."

Cost estimates on the project range from $2.3 million to $7.2 million, though Pawlowski said the difference between the two sides would in reality double the construction expense deemed necessary by the insurance company.

A forestry lab, a language and training lab and the faculties of anthropology and languages were all displaced when a fire gutted the building in July 2008. A cause has yet to be determined by the fire marshal’s office.

Pawlowski said it hasn’t been easy finding homes for student and faculty left without a home because of the blaze.

"It’s been quite a challenge for some of the faculty members who had their offices in the building. They’ve been relocated, but it’s just not been a real good experience for our folks here on campus," he said.

In other Lakehead University news, Pawlowski confirmed renovation work on the century-old former Port Arthur Collegiate Institute Building on Red River Road is proceeding as planned, and he expects students to be using the building by the fall.

"The whole building won’t be finished, but certainly the majority of the first and second floor (will be)," he said.

The faculty of education’s professional year students will be using the building this fall, among a number of other departments, he added.