The owner of the Noyes Street apartment building where a fire killed six young adults in November has applied for a permit from the city of Portland to demolish the building.
A letter sent to neighbors last week and included in the application, dated Thursday, said the demolition was expected to occur within 60 days and take two to four days to complete.
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City spokeswoman Jessica Grondin said there’s no set time frame for issuing a permit and the city may first request additional information from the applicant, building owner Gregory Nisbet.
“Our intentions are to have this site removed as fast as possible in a neighborly manner,” says the letter, written by Ed Benjamin of Benjamin Construction of South Portland, the demolition contractor.
Asked Friday when the demolition might happen, Benjamin said he didn’t know yet.
“We’re waiting for the city to give us the go-ahead,” he said.
Fire officials said Wednesday that the Nov. 1 fire at 20-24 Noyes St. – the state’s deadliest blaze in 40 years – was started by a cigarette butt that ignited materials on the front porch of the building, where there were no working smoke alarms and a back exit was blocked. The three occupants of the building who survived had to escape by jumping out a second-story window. At least four lawsuits have been filed against Nisbet on behalf of the victims.
Carol Schiller, who lives across the street from the building, said she relives the fire every time she looks out her kitchen window.
“You can almost hear the screams,” she said.
Schiller said some tenants in the neighborhood have moved because they couldn’t stand the sight of the building, a constant reminder of the tragedy.
“I would hope the city would expedite the permitting process as quickly as they could,” she said.
Once the building is about to come down, Schiller said, she imagines the neighborhood will hold another vigil for the victims, like the one 10 days after the fire.
“We’ll gather just to say farewell,” she said.
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