SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A crane from British Columbia arrived at the Coast Fraser Tower Hotel this week to help with the retrofitting of the four floors affected by a May fire.

Work on the Coast Fraser Tower Hotel began with the help of an external elevator that will allow construction workers to transport their supplies to the top three floors without going through the building. - Nicole Veerman/NNSL photo

Pat Phillips, superintendent of Clark Builders, was on site Thursday and said it's not often construction workers in the city get to see or use such a large crane.

"The last time I was working on one of these was at Centre Square. That was in 1990," he said.

The crane is being used to set up an external elevator that will allow workers to safely transport materials to and from the top floors of the building.

"(We have to) remove all the drywall, cabinets, anything that's damaged, carpets and pretty much replace it and put it back together," Phillips said.

The fire and water damage on the top four floors of the 14-storey building is from a fire that broke out on an outdoor balcony on the 14th floor at the end of May.

In July, clean-up efforts were put on hold when asbestos, a fibrous substance used as insulation and sound proofing, was discovered on the 13th floor.

Asbestos has been known to cause both lung cancer and mesothelioma; a form of cancer that affects the protective outer lining of the body's internal organs.

The external elevator will allow a crew from Edmonton to start safely removing the asbestos that was found in the tape and drywall mud of the walls during an inspection by the Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission (WSCC) on July 21.

Phillips said he hopes the work goes quickly because the elevator can only be used up to temperatures of minus 20.

"The lift won't be working at minus 40. It's not rated for that. But most of our work is inside. Hopefully we have all our material up (before it gets colder)."

Catherine Travis, general manager of the Coast Fraser Tower Hotel, said the retrofitting will take about a year.

Since the fire, small projects have been taking place at the hotel, she said.

"The project has never stopped. We put in new electricity in the parking lot to bring in this exterior elevator and then we have been doing air quality testing constantly on the building, so there have been things happening, it's just not the hugely visual things you would see from the street.

"Now that everything is in place, things will start happening," Travis said.

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