Concerns remain over ongoing leaks at Rainbow Centre in Sudbury

A Sudbury woman who works in the Rainbow Centre Mall is concerned about the safety of the building because of ongoing leaks near her office.

Although it's been a year since Chris Cosby first spoke out about the leak, she says management for the downtown shopping centre hasn't done anything to fix it, aside from closing off the area.

"It has signs on it that say, 'Please excuse our appearance while we're under construction," Cosby said.

"After a year, it's getting a little hard to excuse the appearance, since literally nothing has been done other than removing most of the small buckets that were there to catch drips, and putting a big garbage can, which of course only catches some of the drips."

Company says 'significant' work has been done

Cosby is worried the leak is indicative of a larger weakness in the office building where she works, which is part of the larger Rainbow Centre complex.

"I'm no architect, but it doesn't take an architect to realize that having water pouring in from the roof, through to the second floor, every time there's a heavy rain does not indicate that things are well repaired and does indicate the damage could spread while it's not being dealt with."

But the leak is being dealt with, according to Robert Green, who is the project coordinator for Vista Hospitality, the company that owns the shopping centre.

"We have done a significant amount of work there already," Green told CBC News.

"We've replaced a roof elevation in that area, we've done significant cladding, we've replaced a doorway in that area. It's a reverse membrane system that we've worked on there, and we currently have our engineers drawing up a drain installation."

Green says the drain installation is expected to be the final stage of the project and the repairs should be completed by the fall.

He adds that visitors to the mall will see scaffolding and signs up as renovations to the parking garage continue, but that the work isn't connected to the leaks near Cosby's office.

"It's not performed because there were red flags about structural integrity, it's part of the regular maintenance."

The company is also completing work to open up a corridor between the food court and the office building side of the complex.

Throughout the renovations, Green says the company has done it's best to be transparent with tenants, as well as the city's building services department.

Cosby, however, has been unsatisfied with management's response to her concerns.

"Nothing's been said about when they're actually going to deal with the various repairs that still need to be done," she said.

"And the only communication I want to hear from them about those doesn't involve words, it involves me seeing something being done."