Mounties say an overnight fire that damaged a historic building in St. Stephen is being treated as suspicious.
The blaze broke out in the two-storey Greco Pizza Building at 61 Milltown Boulevard.
Sean Morton, chief of the St. Stephen Fire Department, said his department received the call around 1:30 a.m. Monday.
“It was a pretty well-involved fire when crews arrived,” Morton said in a phone interview late Monday morning.
“The fire started in the ground floor area and spread up the exterior of the building into the second floor and into the attic space.”
Morton confirmed that the building was vacant at the time of the fire, and no injuries were reported.
Fire crews from four neighbouring departments also responded to the scene: Oak Bay and Western Charlotte in New Brunswick, and Calais and Princeton in Maine.
It took crews two hours to bring the flames under control and another three hours to fully them, said Morton.
Morton said the fire caused extensive damage to the building, but noted he did not complete a full assessment after the blaze was out.
“It is an older structure made of heavy timbers, which tend to stand up to that type of fire much better,” he said, noting the building’s owner and their insurance company will decide what happens with the building.
Morton said the cause of the fire remains under investigation by the RCMP and the Office of the Fire Marshal. When asked whether the fire was suspicious, he directed our newsroom to the RCMP for comment.
Cpl. Hans Ouellette, a spokesperson for the New Brunswick RCMP, said investigators are treating the fire as suspicious at this time.
“We consider the fire suspicious in nature because we don’t have a cause yet,” Ouellette told our newsroom.
According to online real estate records, the building was listed for sale at a price of $199,000.
The building had been designated a Local Historic Place for its architecture and its role in the economic development of the area, according to Canada’s Historic Places.
“The Greco Pizza Building is recognized for being a rare example of mid-19th century Neoclassical architecture in St. Stephen,” said a post on Canada’s Historic Places.
According to the post, the building was built on land laid out by the William Mahood Plan of 1846.
“In the beginning, four Ionic columns supported the pediment on the front façade. Today, two of the original columns remain. The roof was raised in later years to establish living quarters.”
The Bank of Nova Scotia occupied the building from 1882 until 1908. J. R. Sederquest purchased the building for his undertaking establishment and was later the George Maxwell Funeral Home.
Through time, it was also home to a barber shop, an antique store, several fast food outlets and other enterprises.
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