Greg Burchell
News Reporter

Humber College has started legal action against the company that built the Guelph-Humber building on North Campus seven years ago, citing the deteriorating state of the building, said Rani Dhaliwal, vice-president of finance and administrative services.
“Clearly, the work that was done wasn’t complete to the quality that it should have been, and we’ll be in a legal recourse with them,” said Dhaliwal.
Humber issued a statement of claim against Ball Construction last July, seeking $1.5-million in damages.
Ball Construction president Jason Ball said a statement of defence will be submitted. He refused to comment further.
Lawyers for Humber College and Ball Construction could not be reached for comment.
“There’s a problem with the brick façade on the building,” said Humber manager of maintenance and operations, David Griffin. “You can see that it’s bowing out, it looks like it’s sloping off, and there’s a risk the bricks could fall off the building.”
The college noticed the problem three years ago when dark stains began to appear on the bricks, said director of facilities management Carol Anderson.
The fencing around the area was erected last fall, after the bricks began to tilt away from the building, said Anderson.
According to the statement of claim Humber hired Construction Control, a company specializing in structural problems, to do testing and investigative work on the brick when Ball did not investigate or fix the alleged problems with the brickwork.
Anderson said it looks like the waterproofing around the top and edges of the brick could be sloped backwards, letting water in and soaking the brick from the inside, but won’t be sure until they begin to remove it.
A tender for the repair job is being finalized and will be open for bids in the last week of April.
“The work will probably begin as soon as school finishes,” said Dhaliwal.
Anderson said it likely will take the entire summer.