4 years after fire, Westcourt Place building may soon be ready for occupancy

Four years after a fire displaced hundreds of residents, businesses and the Provincial Offences court, the Westcourt Place building on Goyeau Street may soon be ready for occupancy.

"It should be soon. An exact date I don't have that right now. It's probably something that we would have a little bit more clarity in the coming weeks," said the City of Windsor's deputy chief building official Rob Vani.

• 3 years after the fire, Westcourt Place tenants await resolution of case

Vani said the owners are nearing completion on restoring life safety systems such as fire alarms and stand pipes that were damaged in the blaze on Nov. 12, 2019.

He said once the owners submit paperwork showing all the necessary work has completed to satisfy the Ontario Building Code and the city has time to review it, the city's building department will give the green light for the building to reopen.

"It's just been a real complex project because it's an existing building," said Vani, adding that work is also ongoing to refurbish some of the apartments.

"It's taking them a lot longer than I think they would have hoped, as well as we would have hoped as well. They're in the sort of final phases of verifying all the life safety systems in the building that they've refurbished to make sure that those are all operational," he said, adding he can't say when the owners will actually reopen the building for occupancy once they get the green light.

CBC News has reached out to owner Philip Friedman of Montreal for comment but we have not been able to connect.

Meanwhile, Ward 3 Coun. Renaldo Agostino is "ecstatic"  at the news.

"You know, we certainly have a housing crunch in this community, but we also need some density downtown and if we can reopen that building to the glory it was before, it will be fantastic for the core," said Agostino.

Chris MacLeod, the chair of the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association, said having more residents downtown also provides more clientele for the downtown businesses.

"More people brings more businesses, more businesses bring more people. So that's fantastic news," said MacLeod.

Matt Wachna, chair of the Windsor Downtown Residents Alliance, also says if more people are living downtown it will reduce crime.

"People tend to not commit crime when there's people right in front of them," said Wachna.

A class action lawsuit against the owners of the building remains ongoing.

Harvey Strosberg, the lawyer representing the tenants, tells CBC News he will soon be asking a judge to rule that the owners of the building were liable for the fire.