The rebuilding process for the Beaver Bank Kinsac Community Centre and volunteer fire department is underway, with shovels expected in the ground by this spring.
Area councillor Barry Dalrymple said last week’s fire, which extensively damaged the structure, has led to several community meetings over the past seven days, and people are looking to get the building – which housed a daycare, an RCMP community centre, meeting space and a public computer access facility – rebuilt and back up and running as quickly as possible.
“Next spring is what we’re targeting as the start of the reconstruction,” Dalrymple said yesterday. “In actuality, the rebuilding has started right now as far as planning, fundraising, all that kind of stuff.”
On Sept. 23 at 11:48 p.m., fire crews were called to the centre on Beaver Bank Road as a severe fire with a significant amount of flames and smoke consumed the five-year-old building.
“Basically, the roof (of the community centre) didn’t exist by the time I got here at 12:20 a.m.”, Lindsay Shano told Metro the day after the fire.
Dalrymple said fire officials still don’t know the cause of the blaze. The municipality is also still working things out with its insurance because it still hasn’t been determined if any of the building can be saved.
The volunteer fire department, which was able to save its equipment, is now working out of the building’s parking lot.
“The insurance, as I’ve been told, is replacement insurance so basically it’s the cost of rebuilding that building in today’s world,” Dalrymple said when asked the cost of constructing the new centre. The centre was built in 2004 at a cost of about $4.5 million.
