Cranbrook city council approved a remedial action order that would allow for a sealant to be sprayed on a debris piles that remains from the Knight’s Hall demolition last winter.
During a city council meeting on Sept. 23, the remedial action order declared the debris pile a nuisance, and mandated that it must be sprayed with a substance that will prevent the spread of dust that contains asbestos and other carcinogens.
The action must be carried out within 15 days of the order being made. If the property owner — Valco Hotels Ltd. Inc. No. BC0316312 — doesn’t comply, the city can do it and charge the cost back through property taxes.
The former Knight’s Hall building was destroyed by fire in December 2023, and was demolished shortly afterwards, which created large debris piles.
The debris piles contain hazardous material and pose a risk to the public, according to a staff report.
“As the Property is vacant and minimally secured, City staff are of the view that there is a risk from airborne exposure of asbestos and/or other hazardous materials,” reads the report. “School District Staff have expressed concerns over the of the Debris Piles, and its proximity to Pinewood Elementary school, which has over 300 students during the school year.”
The remedial action order states the piles must be sprayed with Fiberlock Fiberset PM 7470, which is broken down as a liquid coat that once applied and dried, acts as resin-based sealant, preventing the disturbance of dust.
An application of Fiberlock Fiberset PM 7470 is expected to cost $19,348.52, which includes a nine-day initial application process to suppress the dust that has accumulated in both debris piles.
Knights Hall, the former nurses residence for the St. Eugene Hospital, was serving as a apartment building until an earlier fire in November of 2022. It sat derelict since, until the final fire in December of 2023.
Crews were then contracted by the City of Cranbrook to knock down the building, and the costs of that were be passed on to the owner.
The troubled heritage building is now vanished, its bricks — themselves of historic provenance — buried under the site due to asbestos contamination, and the rest of it piled as rubble, to be removed later.
Knights Hall has followed the fate of the hospital it was built to serve. It is the final chapter in the long life and death of one of Cranbrook’s most historic sites.
The St. Eugene Hospital was built in 1901, and operated by the Catholic Sisters of Charity, with assistance from Dr. J.H. King and F.W. Green. It rapidly doubled its capacity for patients, and another wing was added in 1912 to accommodate the rapid growth of the community at the time.
The hospital was always intended as a teaching hospital, and apartments in the hospital itself were fitted up in 1912. The hospital expanded even further with its construction of the Nurses residence, which open in January of 1928, to great public celebration.
Only one generation of nursing students was able to enjoy these amenities. The last class of nurses graduated in 1949, and by the 1950s, the hospital itself was aged out. When the Cranbrook and District Hospital was built (now the East Kootenay Regional Hospital), St. Eugene hospital came into private hands, as did the nursing residence, the latter which became private apartments.
The hospital went through various incarnations — a restaurant, a night club, a casino, and finally the Tudor House, which burned to the ground in 2002. And so, the former nurses residence — Knights Hall — has followed the fate of its sister building.
The bricks themselves from which the building was constructed were unsalvageable due to asbestos contamination. However, they also have a local historic resonance. Redcliff Brick Works, just north of Medicine Hat, provided the bricks for both the nurses’ residence and St. Mary’s Church, which also opened in 1928. Redcliff Bricks shut down shortly after both edifices were opened.
