St. Thomas, Ont. building demolished after fire, but piece of history salvaged from wreckage

Although the building was reduced to rubble, one piece of history was saved. CTV London’s Brent Lale has more.

A building constructed in 1882 has been demolished in downtown St. Thomas, Ont. after fire ripped through a restaurant and multiple upper-floor apartments.

“Sadly, fire is taking its toll on Talbot Street,” said historian Steve Peters.

“The Central building was constructed in 1882 at a cost of $5,000. Those three stores have served the citizens of downtown Saint Thomas for a lot of years. Sadly, we’ve got another hole.”

It was just five months ago when another building on the city’s main street was destroyed in what police determined was arson.

Fire officials tell CTV News this fire started on the main level in the Lucky Kitchen restaurant and spread upstairs, destroying multiple apartment buildings.

“The main building itself, there is really, unfortunately, nothing that would be salvageable,” said Angelo DiCicco, chief building official for the city of St. Thomas.

“The building was demolished under direction from the fire department. I’ll be working with the owners of both the building that was affected as well as the neighboring buildings, to ensure that as they rebuild and move forward, everything is rebuilt safely.”

Next door, Yurek Pharmacy has been scrambling to help its customers. Co-Owner Jeff Yurek says they will re-open as soon as possible, but their Talbot Street location is closed due to smoke and water damage.

They are filling in prescriptions at their London store for delivery.

CTV News has learned they plan to move to the CASO Station as a temporary location.

There is also smoke and water damage to the neighbouring Crazy Joe’s gym.

“The insurance companies will be taking over for both owners because it was two owners, within that same block,” said DiCicco.

“Their insurance companies will kind of be taking over at this point. Now we’ll be waiting for them to kind of get back to us as to how they wish to proceed with next steps.”

Standing on Talbot Street, Don Krol can’t believe he lost everything in the blaze. He lived in an apartment above the gym.

“It’s devastating, it’s heartbreaking and I can’t believe it but I’m just happy everyone got out safe,” said Krol.

He had left for work just minutes before the fire started downstairs, when he got a call from his girlfriend.

“She called me in the morning and said she smelled smoke,” recounted Krol.

“I said, ‘Open the doorway because sometimes, we get people down in the hallway messing around.’ She opened the door and there was nothing but black smoke. She immediately slammed the door and was choking and hacking on the smoke, and I told her to run to the back and get the heck out of there.”

Krol says he’s lucky that he has found an apartment, got the keys and is starting to gather belongings and rebuild his life.

Credit needs to be given to the men who constructed these buildings 143 years ago.

“There’s multiple lines of brick, so three bricks deep for each wall,” said DiCicco.

“That definitely helps out. I was in the building and while there was significant smoke damage, there was no fire spread into those neighboring buildings.”

Fire and demolition crews also worked to save the historic “Central Block 1882” sign from the front façade.

It is broken, but was salvaged and will be held by the City of St. Thomas until they can determine what is the best way to preserve this iconic piece.

“There are a lot of memories out of that place,” said Peters.

“The Chinese food restaurant had been there since about 1964 and countless generations, certainly my family frequented it over the years and late nights, after being out at the bar or down for a bowl of wonton soup and an eggroll, to part of it was the Rendezvous restaurant. At one point, Barnes Menswear even Beaton’s Stereo Shop was in there for a period of time. It’s served a lot of uses since it’s construction in 1882 and sadly it’s not going to continue to do that.”