Downtown Toronto streets to open for rush hour after Trump Tower's antenna fiasco

Roads near the Trump Tower that were closed since Monday morning are scheduled to reopen around 4:30 p.m. today.

The roads had been closed as crews worked to repair an unstable antenna on top of the 65-storey building.

Toronto Police Sgt. Pat Alberga said Tuesday afternoon that there is no safety risk, and that the road closures were taken in an "abundance of caution".

Alberga said he does not know whether engineers have determined what the problem is with the antenna. But he said they determined it's safe to reopen the streets.

"Building inspectors from the City of Toronto said that the roads will be reopened shortly. We're going to do it in a nice, obviously safe manner, and they have done their investigation and concluded their investigation on the rooftop — they don't deem, obviously, the tower to be in an unsafe situation," he said.

Police closed the intersection on part of Bay Street as well as parts of Richmond and Adelaide Streets near the tower on Monday morning after a building employee spotted the antenna swaying. Engineers responded to the scene then and announced repairs to the building will not be completed until Tuesday.

The building had been scheduled to reopen at noon on Tuesday, but police announced that engineers continue to work on the scene and they are "hoping" to open roads later in afternoon.

The police use the hashtag #TrumpUnstableAntenna on social media to refer to the situation.

Mayor 'frustrated'

Mayor John Tory, said he was "very concerned" about the shutdown of downtown traffic and called for an investigation into what went wrong with the tower. 

Tory called it "frustrating" that he couldn't directly contact the building's owners. He asked ownership to "do a better job of communicating to the media and to the public because of one of the frustrations [on Tuesday] was the lack of information."

Engineers from out of town had to be flown in to look at the antenna, according to Tory. 

Tory also said he wants the building management to be held accountable for what happened, noting the road closures are a "big cost" to the city.

Neil Labatte, the president and CEO of Talon International, the Toronto-based real estate firm responsible for the building, said its employees were the ones who alerted police.

"Talon's technical specialist was quickly dispatched to the area, and found that the concerns were unsubstantiated," Labatte said of the swaying antenna. "Talon is continuing its due diligence and is now awaiting a final report from its technical team. As soon as Talon has the final report, the police department will be notified."