Architect Bill Curran is warning the city and neighbours of Hamilton’s historic Tivoli Theatre – the dilapidated site of a long-promised redevelopment – about apparent structural issues with the building’s walls, including buckling bricks and a lengthy crack.

“I’m worried [that] anyone who parks back there will get a pile of bricks landing on their head one day,” said Curran, one of the owners of a building next to the Tivoli on James Street North. 

On Sept. 11, Curran issued a warning to the building tenants who park in the lot adjacent to the old theatre’s north wall, the same day he notified City of Hamilton building safety officials of what he described as “a significant structural concern.” CBC Hamilton is also a tenant in that building.

“I think that I see displacement of the top six to eight inches… of the exterior brickwork at the corner, bowing outward,” he wrote. “As you know, architects have a duty to report code issues that we become aware of.”

Bob Nuttall, the city’s manager of building inspections, says his team followed up on the complaint with an exterior inspection the day after it was received. 

Keep reading on cbc.ca