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Wall along Fredericton's historic Officers' Square coming down
Hot:Loading... Date:2018-09-12
Wall along Fredericton's historic Officers' Square coming down
A fragile stone wall and ornamental fence at Officers' Square in downtown Fredericton will be taken down because of concerns about public safety, the city said Tuesday.
The wall, which was put up in 1901, is unstable, and the city says it has to be removed before thousands of people hit the downtown for the Harvest Jazz & Blues Festival, which starts Sept. 11.
The iron railing was added later, before the First World War, but both the wall and railing have deteriorated, the city said.
"It was more unstable in the upper balustrade, which is the metal railings, the sandstone post," Sean Lee, the assistant director of engineering for the city, said as he listed problems with the fence.
It's unclear whether a fence will be a part of the planned $8.9 million renovation of Officers' Square along Queen Street.
The square, with roots going back to the late 1700s, has become a vibrant space for concerts, festivals and other cultural gatherings.
Parts of the old fence will be preserved for possible future use, Lee said.
"We'll save as much of it as we can," Lee said.
The public will be consulted about what happens next, he said.
Crews working on a construction project on nearby Saint Anne's Point Boulevard alerted the city to structural problems with the wall earlier this summer.
The city immediately put up chain-link fences on either side of the wall to keep people away from it.
Lee said the city applied for a heritage permit from the province in July to remove the fence.
"We have catalogued every part of the fence," he said. "We've done some detail pictures, some detail recordings of everything that is there."
The cast iron mould used to make the original fence is available to the city, he said.
He did not say how much it would cost to remove the fence, which will start coming down in the next few days.