Employees regroup after arriving Monday morning to find the building that housed their business was badly damaged by fire overnight.
The four-storey commercial structure is on the northeast corner of Bank and Somerset, across the street from Somerset House. Nearly a year ago, the intersection was blocked after the partial collapse of that building during renovations. The blockage during subsequent legal ping-pong between the city and the former hotel's owner, about whether to save it or raze it, played out for months before reno work restarted in spring.
Bank Street businesses then spent the summer in the midst of a major street reconstruction that remains to be finished.
Just me, or is Ottawa's approach to downtown redevelopment a little ad-hoc...?
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