After a site stabilization project to allow required asbestos testing on site, business owners say the Caribou Village Shopping Center is now in ruins.
NEDERLAND, Colo. — Businesses owners in Nederland hoping to get some of their things after a massive fire four months ago are frustrated.
After a site stabilization project, owners say anything left in the previously damaged building is now in ruins.
“It’s been a long and terrible road,” said Tim Dumke, owner of the Laundry Room in Nederland.
These past four months have not been good ones for Tim Dumke. The owner of the Laundry Room has been without his laundromat since a fire destroyed the Caribou Village Shopping Center back in October.
“Sorry Ned, there goes your laundromat. It’s right there in that pile of rubble,” Dumke said.
Since then, the Caribou Village Shopping Center’s property owners, Tebo Properties, and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) have gone back and forth about what’s needed to meet asbestos testing requirements before they can demolish the spot and rebuild.
On Feb. 13, CDPHE approved Tebo’s site stabilization plans allowing them to move forward with stabilizing the site and later, finish asbestos testing. Business owners hoped it wouldn’t be long before they could go in and recover remaining items that survived the fire.
Last week crews went in, knocking much of the remaining structures down.
“All of my stuff has been there, intact until last week when this contractor came and razed this entire site,” Dumke said. “So hell yeah, I’m pretty upset about that.”
Bill Rigler is a spokesperson for Tebo Properties. Rigler said structures needed to come down in order to stabilize the site and finish asbestos testing required by the state.
“CDPHE had approved something known as the site stabilization plan that basically involved heavy machinery under very strict and regulated conditions going on at the site and ultimately taking down some of the superstructures and being very careful not to move those around,” Rigler said.
Rigler said crews tried to take care.
“It was not like a tractor or tread was like rolling over the top of it, right? It was an arm that was like telescoping down and kind of like picking away at it. So, are those things damaged? We have done our utmost to, to make sure that’s not the case,” Rigler said. “It’s just a very challenging situation because of these restrictions.”
Tebo will soon submit a site testing plan to CDPHE to begin the final asbestos testing. Until that’s completed, he said, they can’t go through to see what’s damaged, what’s salvageable yet on the property.
Rigler said he hopes they can bring items and answers to business owners soon.
Dumke said it’s not enough.
“We were told that we could rely on them. They turned our back on us. They told us one thing, they did another. They left us all in the lurch. So where do we go from here? Nowhere. We live here, where else are we gonna go?” Dumke said.
After the site held so much pain for residents for months, Dumke said he’s ready to see it knocked down and the memories carried away.
“Just get it done and get it over with,” Dumke said. “Now, 100% of the damage is done, no one can recover anything from this site so the least they can do is get it the hell out of here so we don’t have to look at it.”
