“If you’re a property owner, you’ve got to do the best you can to keep going,” says Corey Gardi, a Ward 5 councilman who expressed his dismay at the fire at the old St. Veronica at the weekend. Firefighters were called to the site of the former school in East Balfour Street late on Saturday night after part of the building was engulfed in flames. This was confirmed by Deputy Chief of the Sault Fire Department Paul Milosevich SooToday that firefighters were at the scene for more than five hours, putting out high flames and battling thick smoke. “The flames were a bit stubborn, but they managed to put them out by morning,” says Milosevic. “The building has been extensively damaged, the roof has collapsed and the external walls on one side of the building have fallen.” After the fire was extinguished, the scene was turned over to Sault police. said Sault police spokesman Lincoln Louttit SooToday that detectives from the Bureau of Investigation are now investigating the incident. It’s not the first time the abandoned building has been investigated for fire-related incidents, leaving city officials and residents frustrated at the lack of action by the building’s property owners. Considering the state of the structure, Gardi says he wasn’t surprised by Saturday night’s result. “As far as I’m concerned, the owner has not been responsible for years and it was only a matter of time,” he says. As a Ward 5 consultant, Gardy says he was used to going through the building every few weeks to check on its condition and then contacting the building or police departments when it was necessary to reseal the building. The owners of the St. Veronica is the same group of out-of-town investors that own the doctor’s building on Queen Street, which was recently threatened with a blackout notice by the PUC due to unpaid bills. Their numbered company bought the old school in 2020. The key players in that ownership group — Italo Ferrari and Mike Anobile — also own the old General Hospital site, which they have promised to redevelop into condominiums and a long-term care facility. They also have a sign posted outside the former primary school in East Balfour, proposing plans for “Balfour Residences”. Gardi is not confident that the former school site will be converted into the proposed villa rentals any time soon. “Given their history with the hospital space, I would say no,” he says. “I don’t know what their specific plans are for the site, but I’m not sure of a timeline.” Out-of-town property owners buying abandoned buildings in the Sault leave Gardi concerned that properties like the St. Veronica site won’t get the proper attention they need to ensure the safety and well-being of nearby residents. “The owners don’t have the same kind of faith or interest in the community,” he says. “We are working to improve some of our policies and regulations in and around these types of properties, so we hope to see this problem mitigated to some extent.”
