DEMOLITION of the homegrown New City Commercial Center (NCCC) Mall will start Saturday, May 19, nearly five months after fire gutted the 14-year-old building and killed 38 business process outsourcing (BPO) workers.
NCCC Mall Davao public relations manager Thea Padua confirmed this in an interview Friday, May 18.
She said the management applied for demolition permit last February 2, paid the city permit fee worth P187,854 and was given a go signal by the Office of the Building Official.
But the Interagency Anti-Arson Task Force (IATF), the body formed to investigate the incident, barred them pending the release of their report on the investigation.
The management was given clearance this month to start the demolition. The permit requires the mall management to complete the demolition within a period of 30 days from the starting date.
“Actually we applied for the demolition last February pa pero we received a clearance from IATF na okay na despite wala pang (investigation) report, cleared na 'mi to demolish, this month lang,” Padua said.
She said they still have to receive a copy of the investigation report.
D.M. Consunji, Inc. (DMCI) will undertake the demolition work.
Asked on what would be the plan of the mall after the demolition, she said the company plans to still build a mall but she said that there is no definite plan yet.
Fire gutted the mall on December 23, 2017.
The incident claimed 37 lives of Survey Sampling International (SSI) employees and one employee of the mall after they were trapped on the fourth floor where the call center office is located.
Initial investigation of the task force revealed that the cause of the fire was electrical short circuit that originated at the third floor of the mall, as manifested by the physical evidences they gathered.
They also noted violations in the safety facility such as the alarm system, fire exit and the sprinkler.