Demolition looms for Daniell Building

FALL FROM GRACE: The old three-storey Daniell Building has been cleared of its tenants. PHOTO/FILE

Wrecking crews are due to start demolishing the earthquake risk Daniell Building in Masterton's Queen Street within a few days.

The building's owner, former mayor Garry Daniell, confirmed the building was on the brink of being levelled and that the site should be cleared by early March.

Mr Daniell said he had already drawn up re-development plans for the site but would not disclose what plans he had for the land, regarded as a prime site at the town's northern end.

The Daniell Building has long been on the risk-list but its plight was brought to the fore on January 20 last year when the 6.2 Eketahuna earthquake hit the region and inflicted further internal damage to it.

The building had to be cleared of its tenants and has to all intents and purposes been condemned since.

Mr Daniell said a principal contractor had been employed to wreck the building and it was likely that contractor would delegate some of the task to sub- contractors.

He said wrecking the 90-year-old multi-storey landmark would be achieved by working from the rear and progressing to the Queen Street frontage.

He did not think a wrecking ball would be needed. "I think a big loader will be used to tug it down," he said. "There is a lot of concrete involved."

Mr Daniell said the spoil would be trucked away, not to the council-owned landfill, but to another site where he planned to have it chipped and hopefully recycled.

Because the building will be progressively wrecked from the rear it is not thought there will be much disruption to traffic or pedestrians using Queen Street. But Mr Daniell said when work shifted to the front there could be a need to partition off some parts of the carriageway.

Despite its fall from grace due to earthquake risk the old building has been a feature of the town for almost a century.

It began life in the mid-1920s being tenanted by the owner CE Daniell on land near his retail business, complete with a right-of-way featuring a tunnel through to Lyttles garage behind it.

Last December, Masterton District councillors spoke up over the length of time it was taking for the old building to be levelled, in light of nearly a year being out-of-bounds.

That discussion corresponded with council news it was to launch a new audit of building warrants of fitness and compliance schedules aimed at improving the standard of commercial buildings throughout the Masterton district.