Partial demolition begins on Somerset House

Crewsbegan tearing down part of an Ottawa building Tuesday that partially collapsed in October, leading the city to close a downtown intersection for more than seven weeks.

The work was to quickly address the safety concerns about Somerset House, the heritage brick building on the southeast corner of Bank and Somerset streets and "remove the hazardous condition" that led to the street closure, said a City of Ottawa news release Monday evening.

The first stepis thedemolition of the east side of the building, starting with the roof. Thatis being doneusing machines as the building is not safe to enter, the release said.

After that, engineers will assess the building's foundations and decide whether further demolition is required.

Only then will engineers be able to provide an estimate of how long further work may take and when the intersection might reopen, the city said.

The plan was put together by the city, the building's owner and heritage engineer John G. Cooke.

Somerset House partially collapsed on Oct. 19. Since then, the city has kept the nearby intersection closed over concerns thatthe buildingmight collapse further.

This past weekend, the city announced that while the intersection remains closed,parking at all on-street meters in the area bounded by Kent, O'Connor, Lisgar and Gilmour streets will be free.

That is intended tohelp businessesin the area thatsay customer traffic has dropped significantly since the intersection was closed.