The City of Calgary says it has received applications from 5,105 people who want to have their inscribed bricks retrieved from Olympic Plaza before the plaza is demolished as part of the upcoming Olympic Plaza Transformation Project.
The registration period for people who want their bricks opened on Dec. 10 and closed on Wednesday.
The city says people who submitted applications will receive an email Thursday letting them know their application has been received.
On Thursday, demolition crews were already on scene at Olympic Plaza involved in the process of recovering the bricks.
However, the city says it may not be possible to remove all of them intact because of a number of factors, including their age (40 years old), prior damage and the materials used in the plaza’s construction and installation of the bricks.
People who registered for their bricks will receive a second email, before Jan. 3, 2025, advising them if their brick was successfully retrieved, and if the city was able to recover it intact, they will provided with info on picking up their brick on Jan. 3 or 4.
When the Olympic Plaza Transformation Project was first announced, the city said it would be impossible to retrieve the bricks, but after months of public pressure, it decided to accept applications from people hoping their bricks could be successfully retrieved.