East Lions Community Centre to reopen Wednesday, roof collapse investigation ongoing

The East Lions Community Centre in London, Ont., will reopen this week after a portion of the roof collapsed Friday.

According to a statement from the City of London, a portion of the roof and soffit outside of the main north entrance at the east-end centre at 1731 Churchill Ave. “came loose” and fell to the ground on Friday evening.

Deputy mayor Shawn Lewis told Global News Monday that the damage is “not very extensive.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the roof of the building, it was a soffit collapse, which is sort of the under piece that hangs out over the two entrances to provide people shelter from the rain and the wind,” he said. “Still serious, of course, but primarily unaesthetic more than anything.”

No injuries were reported and staff responded quickly to ensure that the building was secured, the city said.

“Structural engineers have been dispatched to the site to assess the damage and determine the cause,” city staff said in a statement.

“I chatted with the contractors on Saturday when they were doing some of the initial cleanup and I’m not going to speculate on the cause, but I think our staff were really smart in terms of being proactive and removing the soffit from the south side entrance as well because it looks like the problem was tentatively the same there,” Lewis said.

In an update posted on Tuesday, city staff said that the centre will reopen Wednesday and engineers will continue to “perform a thorough investigation to determine the cause of the collapse, identify repair specifications and estimate repair costs.”

“We just have to make sure that the engineers go over everything one more time, make sure that everything is safe, and then we’ll be able to get people back in the building,” Lewis said.

The community centre opened in December 2021 following years of delays that eventually resulted in city hall removing the project’s original contractor and taking over the site.