Apartment vacated for repairs
Boot Lake apartments have structural problems

by Glenn Taylor
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Oct 10/97) - Boot Lake Apartment tenants must vacate by the end of the year to allow for repairs to the building.

Built in 1976, the 24-unit complex is the second-newest apartment in town, but structurally it may need considerable repair. Tenants have watched cracks form across their livingrooms as walls slid, ceilings rose, and doors jammed.

The culprit may be melting permafrost beneath the building piles. One resident speculated that gravel laid by winter road crews over the years has slowly raised the parking lot above the gravel pad foundation. This allowed water to roll downhill to the pilings and melt the permafrost underneath.

"We don't know the extent of the work involved," said Allen Stanzell, manager of the Northwest Trading Company, which owns the building. (former mayor Jim Robertson is president of the company.)

Stanzell said he doesn't know if the cost of repairing the building might be prohibitive. "We'll evaluate it in the new year and go from there... But I don't think it's as bad as we initially thought."

The GNWT has been leasing the building from the company for several years to house government employees, and has been responsible for maintenance under the agreement. Very little work has been done on the building during that time, said Stanzell, and with the agreement expiring in December, it's now up to Northwest to tackle the structural problem.

Tenants have been offered a $1,000 relocation allowance by the GNWT to ease the transition. With Inuvik's housing market at its softest in years, it's likely that it won't be difficult finding new digs. Once work is complete, finding new tenants -- or attracting back old tenants -- might be difficult for Northwest. "That's occurred to us, but we've assessed the risk, and we're looking forward to reopening."