A garage door that was scheduled to be removed as the Ingham Arts and Culture Centre renovations progress was the victim of a runaway construction trailer on Sept. 5.
“Thank goodness it didn’t hit a bearing wall or that no one was walking or cycling on the sidewalk when the trailer came free,” said Simon Lazarchuk, a director of the Friends of the Ingham Arts and Culture Centre Society, a group that has taken on the challenge of turning the building on Canyon Street at 15th Avenue into a performance and display space.
The trailer was parked at a restaurant across Canyon Street, where crews were busy redoing a tar and gravel roof. It was “being filled with gravel and debris from the roof when it came free,” Lazarchuk said.
He said that project organizers breathed a sigh of relief that the damage wasn’t greater. The good news, he said, is that the society has recently been awarded a community economic development grant by the Regional District of Central Kootenay to help with renovations to the building.
Coincidentally, RCMP Staff Sgt. Bob Gollan was walking along Canyon Street to work when he saw the trailer roll across Canyon Street.
“Fortunately, the weight load caused the trailer’s tongue to bounce up and down on the pavement, slowing its progress,” he said. “If it wasn’t for that, it could very easily have gone right through the door and into the building.”