Tenants at a St. James Town high-rise that were displaced by a massive six-alarm fire in the summer of 2018 began moving back into the building starting today.
An estimated 1,500 tenants were displaced when the fire tore through 650 Parliament Street on Aug. 21, 2018, causing significant damage to the building’s electrical system.
The residents were initially told that they would be able to move back into their units in early 2019, however the work required to restore the 22-storey building proved more complicated than originally thought and the timeline was repeatedly pushed back.
“There is no doubt that it is the tenants that have borne the brunt of this and we recognize that. That said this is a $60 or $70 million repair job and the work was extensive. I believe it was the fire marshal who said it was the worst fire he had seen in terms of the catastrophic impact,” Danny Roth, who is a spokesperson for the property management company, told CP24 on Monday morning. “It has been a major, major reconstruction. It was almost the same as building a new building from the inside out.”
Roth said that the building was deemed safe to reoccupy on Feb. 27 following inspections by Toronto Building, Toronto Fire and the Electrical Safety Authority.
He said that starting today tenants will be able to reoccupy their units on a staggered, floor-by-floor basis.
The process is expected to unfold over the course of 11 weeks with tenants on the top two floors getting the chance to reoccupy their units this week. The process will then continue two floors at a time into May.
“We are taking two tenants per move in slot and we have four slots a day so upwards of eight tenants will be retuning every day, seven days a week between now and May,” Roth said. “We had to do it in a controlled manner to make sure everyone gets in, everyone gets in safely and it isn’t chaos.”
Residents will not face rent increases
Residents started moving back into 650 Parliament at 8 a.m. on Monday.
One of the first residents to return, Rebecca Gondos, told CP24 that she was unsure of what to expect when she returned to the unit she shared with her husband Peter for the first time in months.
She said that it “sort of” feels like she is home but not entirely.
“It is very hard to explain what I am feeling right now. I have been up since 3 a.m. stressing over what we would find when we got here, what the place would look like and what they had done to it – they painted over everything,” she said. “We have movers and our good friend helping us out and we will just get everything in and then we will sit down and figure out what we are doing next.”
The property management company says that tenants moving back in have to reserve one of four daily, three-hour move-in windows by contacting them within seven days of their designated return week.
Those returning to the building will not face any rent increases from what they were paying at the time of the fire.
