The City of Delta has started removing the deteriorating concrete deck at the Brackman-Ker site on Chisholm Street.
Owned by Delta, the property is located next door to the city-owned Seven Seas site which is also vacant.
It’s all part of Delta’s push to revitalize Ladner Village and the waterfront.
The city holds a water lot lease for the portion of the deck over the foreshore and water surface.
Built in the late 1800s, the Brackman-Ker warehouse collapsed into the river in 2010 and its components were subsequently removed and disposed, but the deck remained.
The city over a decade ago used amenity money from the Port of Vancouver to purchase the Seven Seas building and adjacent Brackman-Ker warehouse, which was a recognized heritage building, with the aim the sites would be a catalyst for redevelopment at Ladner Harbour.
The warehouse then collapsed into the harbour and, a few years later, one of the former Brackman-Ker granary buildings was also demolished.
That building was one of three granaries constructed at Chisholm and Georgia streets in the 1890s, across the street from the Brackman-Ker warehouse.
The warehouse was originally built for J.A. Paterson and H.D. Benson, who sold it and the associated granaries across the street, to Brackman-Ker Company of Victoria in 1904.
The milling business was founded in 1877 by Henry Brackman and James Milne as a rolled oats manufacturer.
The company dissolved in 1879, but was resurrected when Brackman partnered with David Russell Ker in 1881. After Brackman’s death in 1903, Ker took over the company and began an ambitious expansion throughout Western Canada.
The Brackman-Ker Milling Company remained in business until it was bought by Maple Leaf Mills in 1965.
