2011 Year in Review: Heritage building destroyed in Gould fire

Only a few days into 2011, arson destroyed a 123-year-old heritage building close to the Ryerson University campus. Nearly a year later, police still don’t have much to go on to find out who is responsible.

The Jan. 3 blaze at Yonge and Gould streets was intentionally set, Mike Ross of the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office told CityNews.ca.

“It’s definitely a million-dollar fire,” he said in a recent interview.

However, the exact cost is difficult to determine, because the building was already damaged before the fire, and the cost of the land is always fluctuating, according to Toronto police Det. Debbie Harris.

A few days after the fire, police released a video of a “person of interest”caught on surveillance camera the morning of the six-alarm fire. However, that attempt to find the culprit came up empty.

“No arrests have been made. We’ve had very few tips, and no one has recognized the person in the video,” Harris said.

The structure, built in 1888, sat at the edge of the Ryerson campus near Yonge Street. In April 2010, a wall collapsed, sending bricks and other debris onto the sidewalk and shuttering the popular Salad King restaurant.

After the wall collapsed, Lalani Corp., which owns the building, filed an application to have the structure demolished. The city voted in July 2010 to give the building a heritage designation – making it difficult to have it torn down.

Harris said police had interviewed numerous people from Lalani and they had all been co-operative.

Salad King has since reopened on Yonge, but the lot at the corner of Yonge and Gould remains vacant.

The TTC, meanwhile, is considering creating a second exit to the Dundas subway station at the site, spokesperson Brad Ross told CityNews.ca.

Ross said that creating second exits at other stations had cost “in the order of a few million dollars,” but in the Gould Street case, the property costs could be much more expensive.

“There’s no concrete plan but absolutely, we want to do it. There’s just no funding in our capital budget at this time…It may be an entrance as well.”

Ross said the TTC was working with Ryerson University to develop the site: “We’re looking at possibly connecting [the exit] to the university.”

Ryerson did not respond to requests for interviews.