THE WEDNESDAY
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
TRI-CITY NEWS CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
PoCo opens museum
Habkirk wins again
SEE LIFE, PAGE 16
SEE SPORTS, PAGE 30
MARCH 13, 2013 www.tricitynews.com
INSIDE
Tom Fletcher/10 Letters/11 A Good Read/17 Arts & Entertainment/26
Minor repairs needed on CMO By Diane Strandberg THE TRI-CITY NEWS
The south approach of the $132-million, threeyear-old Coast Meridian Overpass will need some repairs due to settlement issues but the Port Coquitlam bridge is structurally sound and the repairs are expected to be minor, the city said. An assessment conducted recently by builders SNC-Lavalin found some settlement had occurred on the south approach near Kingsway Avenue, but it was expected and accounted for in design and maintenance plans, said Dave Currie, the city’s manager of transportation, engineering and operations. “Yes, it was part of the design. It was understood there would be some settlement over time. The abutments were designed to allow for that,”he said. The bridge was built in an area of compressible soils, so piles were used to support the main structure, but the approaches were built on light weight fill designed to allow for settlement over time. Currie said most of the settlement occurs shortly after construction and then slows down. Although SNCLavalin was responsible for all repairs under warranty, the cost of ongoing settling repairs have to be paid for by the city. However, Currie said he won’t know how much work is required or what it will cost until the design work is completed in about six weeks. Orange spray paint lines can be seen on the concrete abutments leading up to the bridge where engineers have indicated work needs to be done.
DIANE STRANDBERG/THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Julia Tihanenok of Non-Stop Design outside the Pleasantside Grocery Store in Port Moody. The designer has an ambitious plan to renovate the site and restore the shop to its former glory.
Big plans for restoring old Pleasantside Grocery By Diane Strandberg THE TRI-CITY NEWS
A Port Moody architect who trained in Italy hopes the restoration of the Pleasantside Grocery Store will be part of a renaissance of the Port Moody confectionary that was a popular stop for ice cream and treats for hordes of summer beach-goers in years gone by. Julia Tihanenok of Non-Stop Design has
submitted paperwork to begin the application process that would see the 85-year-old building restored and re-opened as a grocery store, with the addition of a comm e rc i a l / r e s i d e n t i a l building to the west and, eventually, a single family home at the back of the one-acre property. Tihanenok, who is originally from Latvia and is taking on the project with the finan-
cial support of her family, acknowledges that the project is ambitious. But she said she plans to take it slow and consult with residents and heritage advocates, as well as provide the appropriate environmental, geotechnical and other reports as the city requires. In an interview with The News, Tihanenok said she is well aware of the importance of the Pleasantside
Grocery store to the community and will address neighbourhood as well as environmental and development concerns. “The most special thing is that everybody has childhood memories about it,” she said of the grocery store, now an empty shell, but which used to house a grocery store and the Pleasantside post office. see STORE, page 3
Chrisa, a police dog with the Mainland District Police Dog Service, made her first arrest in Coquitlam last week: page 4