The saga of the Old Marina Restaurant has come to an end.
Owners Sherron and Jeff McClintock said they decided not to rebuild the restaurant on Puslinch Lake a few months before a now-discontinued $3-million lawsuit in relation to the 2022 fire filed by the insurance company.
The decision not to rebuild had nothing to do with the lawsuit against companies involved with the property’s geothermal system. McClintock said she didn’t even know about it until she was approached for comment. She stressed it didn’t involve herself or her husband.
Cost is the biggest concern, McClintock said — the old building could have been replicated, and probably cost close to what they received from the insurance, but after losing two buildings to fire they wanted something different. The first fire was in 2005 and the Old Marina didn’t reopen until 2007.
“We were going to try and make it more fireproof … more cement, less things to burn,” McClintock said, noting their insurance doubled on the land even without a building in place because they had put a claim in.
“There was a lot of red tape to deal with,” she said.
“The township, as much as they said they wanted us to be able to rebuild, it didn’t really pan out. They threw a lot of extra things at us.”
“We just didn’t see the feasibility in it.”
They have some ideas kicking around about what to do with the land but won’t reveal anything until they know for sure.
The lawsuit came from the insurance company under the name Puslinch Beach and Marine Ltd., a move she assumes is an attempt to recoup money.
The Statement of Claim was filed July 22 against seven defendants with geothermal companies, stating the fire and damages were “caused as a result of the negligence, breach of contract, breach of warranty, breach of statutory duty and/or breach of duty of the defendants, their servants, employees or agents.”
It is believed, the suit stated, the source of the fire could have been an ERV/HRV unit adjacent to the geothermal unit and forming part of the geothermal system.
Brent Smith, Puslinch’s chief fire prevention officer, said back in 2022 the fire appeared to originate in the service room in the basement, but after months of examination, the point of origin and the ignition sequence wasn’t able to be verified.
The Old Marina on McClintock Drive burned almost to its stone foundation on July 30, 2022.
The day of the fire, Mike Robinson, a supervisor at the restaurant, said employees noticed “a smell” coming from the vents between noon and 1 p.m. before the smoke followed.
Staff evacuated the building, and everyone got out safely.
Cambridge firefighters were first on the scene and entered the restaurant but were driven back by heavy smoke and heat. Firefighters at that point decided to use a defensive attack on the blaze from outside the building.
The blaze brought firefighters from Cambridge, Puslinch and Maryhill, as well as North Dumfries and Guelph/Eramosa, with those trucks used to bring in water from hydrants on Pinebush Road.
Robinson offered his own theory on the cause that day, as the building burned behind him and smoke bellowed over Puslinch Lake.
“It probably had to do with the HVAC system. We can’t confirm it, but it does seem to be the original source of smoke and flames,” he said.
“It didn’t have to do with anything else in the building that we can tell. We did notice a smell coming up through the vents; I’d be pretty sure that’s what caused it, but that’s up to the fire department to determine.”