Kensington Manor to be demolished

Kensington Manor, the northwest Calgary apartment building that was evacuated in November over structural concerns, will be demolished, the city said Tuesday.

Saturday was the deadline for owners to let the city know if they planned to demolish or repair the seven-storey building, located at 321 10th St.N.W.

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"It's a very difficult building to fix at this point in time, so they found the best solution to this was to demolish the current structure and then rebuild," saidWayne Brown of the city'sCo-ordinated Safety Response Team.

The 125 residents were forced to flee on Nov. 23, 2017,with only 15 minutes of noticeafter an engineer warned the building could collapse at any moment. The building also housed retail businesses on the ground floor.

It has been shored up with 800 trusses but no one has been allowed back since.

Brown said there is asbestos in the building that will have to be safely removed before the complex can be torn down.

The demolition will have to be completed by the end of this year.

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