Fate of Adeline Kelly Building still undecided
While the fate of the Adeline Kelly Building at the North Peace Fall Fair ground in the North Peace Regional Park is still undecided, an engineering report indicates that the best future for the building may be as a storage space, rather than a public building.
It is possible, Joe Moser of McElhaney said, to retrofit the existing building to meet 2024 building code requirements, but the lifespan of the already 10-year-old building would be much shorter than a new build. While such an undertaking would cost approximately less half of a new build, he anticipates it would only have 15 years of life remaining. Most new builds are expected to last 50 years, almost three times the estimated remaining life of the Adeline Kelly Building.
In early 2024, a document review of the Adeline Kelly building was done, and it was determined that a full code review was needed, and they found that to meet the 2024 BC Building Code for a three or four-season building, substantial upgrades would be needed.
Originally, the building was designed as an F2 medium hazard industrial occupancy building, or storage building.
“This is a pole shed structure, so it’s wood poles that are embedded in the ground, the walls are made with strapping and tin on the outside, same with the roof. There’s also a concrete slab on-grade,” Moser explained.
In 2021, discussions began around the possibility of adding kitchen and washroom facilities to the building.
“The existing building doesn’t meet the original code for which it should have been designed, way back in 2012 Building Code, or the current BC Building Code,” he said.
“So doing the occupancy change from the F2 to an A2 assembly occupancy requires a full building code upgrade.”
That would require looking at things like sprinkler systems, heating and insulation, ventilation, plumbing, and electrical.
There are also structural issues – for example, the snow load is 24 percent of what it should be, yet the wind loads were 32 percent higher than they needed to be, which is good. However, the original designer appears to have neglected seismic loading, which is a real concern, according to Moser.
There are also concerns with the foundation of the building, during the review, Moser said that the foundations “are very badly overloaded compared to the assumed geotechnical designed values.”
“To get this thing up to speed, we think we would have to remove cladding, replace the roof trusses and strip the walls down to the posts. Even if we were to strip these walls down to the posts, if the geotechnic confirmed that the design parameters were correct, the posts would need to be remediated. What do you really have left? Just the slab.”
“The way that this was constructed was for a pole shed, so basically an auger is brought out, a hole is drilled in the clay, a pole is put in and gravel is backfilled around it. Being familiar with the clays in the Peace region, you know exactly what’s coming, this would be a bathtub that would retain water, more than likely, and reduce the service life of these posts,” he explained.
Going forward, there are essentially three options for the Adeline Kelly building – Upgrade the structure to code requirements only to continue to use it as an A2 building; the next level would be to upgrade to code and insulate the building, add the kitchen and washroom facilities to better meet the needs of people; and the third option would be to repurpose the building and seek other options.
“The key points to that is that remediation is extremely invasive and extremely expensive. It can be done, but I think your money is better spent elsewhere. We’ve already shown that there’s an anticipated shortened service life of this building, with the foundation being as it is.”
“The building is already ten plus years old, typically we would have a building life be in the 50-year range, I would estimate this building being in the 25–30-year range. You’re likely a third of the way through the building’s lifespan.”
While retrofitting the current structure to meet code, would be less expensive than a whole new structure, Moser feels the negatives to such an undertaking outweigh the savings, particularly when it comes to the lifespan of the building.
If repurposed, the structural issues with the building would still be a concern, but Moser said that the PRRD would have to decide on the risk they’re willing to take. The roof trusses could fail “with a bang” under a heavy snow load, damaging items stored inside, whereas foundations erode slowly over time.
“The best, in our opinion would be to repurpose this building and seek other options.”
Thank you for keeping this conversation in the forefront for every one :) An entire community of North Peace Fall Fair supporters are still awaiting to hear the outcome of all the studies that were done.