Cleanup continues at Saint John City Hall after a four-inch water cooling pipe burst, sending brown water pouring through parts of the building.
A pipe located in the pedway level of City Hall ruptured late Wednesday afternoon, according to Lisa Caissie, the city’s public affairs manager.
“The burst caused the two lower levels of City Hall and sections of the pedway to flood,” Caissie said in an interview Thursday.
“There is significant water damage in the area of council chambers and on the bottom floor, which is our customer service centre.”
Officials closed the customer service centre temporarily Wednesday afternoon, describing it at the time as an “unforeseen maintenance issue.” It reopened to the public Thursday morning.
Crews from a disaster restoration company remained on site Thursday with blowers and dehumidifiers, said Caissie.
The new customer service centre and renovated council chambers just opened to the public in October following a multimillion-dollar renovation project at City Hall.
As part of the project, City Hall offices were consolidated onto the first four floors of the building, the council chambers were upgraded, and a new customer service centre was opened on the first floor.
“We saw some damage to equipment in both areas, most notably to the carpeting and some of the drywall in council chambers,” said Caissie.
The extent of damage is unknown, but Caissie said it will be the responsibility of the building owners, not the city, since it was caused by a defect in the building.
“We don’t anticipate the cost to be much, if anything, for the city, but there will be some time required to remediate the damage that’s been caused because it was significant amounts of water that were leaking through in both areas,” she said.
Caissie said it is too soon to say when they might be able to return to the council chambers, but she noted that meetings will not be impacted as they are currently being held virtually under the “orange” level of pandemic recovery.
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