Engineer denies telling buyer Elliot Lake mall in danger of collapsing

A discredited engineer who declared the doomed Algo Centre Mall structurally sound just weeks before it collapsed had previously told a prospective buyer the roof was in urgent need of repair, an inquiry heard Friday.

In a 2011 conversation relayed by inquiry counsel, Robert (Bob) Wood told the developer it would cost $1.5 million to fix the mall’s roof.

“It had to be fixed right away, or the roof would cave in,” Wood was cited as telling Ron McCowan.

Wood said he could barely recall any such conversation. McCowan has yet to testify.

Inquiry lawyer Bruce Carr-Harris pressed Wood about what he might have said, saying the conversation with McCowan suggested the engineer knew the mall was in deep trouble more than six months before its roof caved in.

“Did you tell him that salt leaked down the columns and made them not sound?” Carr-Harris asked.

“Absolutely not.”

“You may have told him that a new roof had to be put on?”

“That portion, yes.”

Wood denied giving McCowan a cost estimate, or telling him the roof was in urgent need of repair or would cave in at some point.

Subsequently, in May 2012, Wood reported to mall owner Bob Nazarian that steel supports at the shopping centre showed surface rusting, but were otherwise “structurally sound.”

The report followed a superficial inspection of the property in which Wood noted “no visual distress.”

“The serious problem was there to be seen, but you didn’t see it,” Carr-Harris said.

“It was covered up,” Wood responded on his second day on the stand.

Wood admitted changing the final May 3, 2012, inspection report — after he and his partner, Gregory Saunders, had signed off on it.

The changes included removing a photograph from a mall store showing yellow tarps strung up to collect water leaking from the roof. He also removed a reference to “ongoing” leakage.

The changes were made at Nazarian’s request, Wood said. The owner was apparently unhappy the mall would look bad when he was trying to get refinancing for it.

“Often clients don’t want to see the worst things that you saw,” Wood explained.

“Don’t you think it misrepresents the actual condition of the building?” Carr-Harris asked.

“No. The substance of the report did not change.”

Nazarian told him the tarps were going to be removed and the leaking fixed, Wood said.

“I gullibly believed him.”

Nazarian is due to testify next month.

Wood admitted he did not discuss the changes he made to the report with Saunders, but refused to call his behaviour unprofessional.

“How could you do that to your partner?” Carr-Harris asked.

“I apologized to him afterwards and I should not have done it. It was inappropriate.”

On June 23, 2012, weeks after the inspection report was completed, part of the roof-top garage caved in due to severe rusting of its steel support structure.

Two women died and several others were hurt.

Wood was stripped of his professional engineering licence in November 2011 after admitting to misconduct unrelated to the mall.

On the stand, he said he had pleaded guilty to get the hearing over with, not because he felt he had done anything wrong.

“I was right,” he said.

“But nobody agreed with you,” Carr-Harris noted.

“That’s correct.”