Fire at Penn Hall

UPDATED: Crews fight fire on Riverview Hospital grounds

Riverview blaze called suspicious

Will add more information as it becomes available, this is will be a serious loss to the social community of the site. Since it contains a gym, tuck shop, small cafe, computer access for the residents, generally the social hub of the site.

Update:

From talking to some of the residents, it appears that the fire started in a storage room that held the sports equipment, that adjoined the gym. Apparently the staff had been leaving this room open lately, something which did not occur in the past. The fire was contained to the storage room, and also impacted the MPA offices upstairs, and the gym, which now has a hole in it to clear the smoke,(hope they fix that soon). The kitchen, computer/crafts room was not directly affected, other than possible smoke and water damage. Hopefully they can at least reopen the less affected areas soon. The building is now boarded up,which will further hasten the deterioration to OUR asset. To add insult to injury the maintenance staff, removed the nice bronze dedication plaque, rather roughly, and squirreled it away somewhere.
The coffee shop with a much reduced menu and the Tuck shop are now in the Industrial services (ID) building, in space formerly reserved for use by the apparel shop.

June 2010 the Tuck shop will be moved into the recently closed library in the Henry Esson Young,(HEY) building in the coming months.

Penn Hall is named after Robert Arthur Pennington, deputy Provincial secretary who had an active interest in the state of affairs at the hospital. The building was started on May 29, 1950 and opened on September 28, 1951.