A flood-damaged Ogdensburg building used as a warehouse by an Ontario sporting goods company could be rid of the firm’s inventory, leaving it ready to be secured and avoid city and fire code violations.

Fire Chief Steven M. Badlam said Thursday that up to six truckloads of merchandise from Leslee Sports, Brockville, has been taken out of the former Newell Manufacturing plant at 100 Paterson St. since the city-imposed deadline of May 18. Garbage has also been removed. Mr. Badlam said he has been kept apprised of the cleanup’s progress by Leslee Group General Manager Michael Dingman.

“It might even be cleaned up by tomorrow,” the chief said.

The unheated building was flooded Feb. 13 when cold conditions caused the sprinkler system to burst.

Faced with the code violations, Leslee was told to either fix the sprinkler system or shut down the building, remove all combustible materials and place plywood over the numerous broken windows.

Mr. Badlam said that Mr. Dingman will seek a local contractor to secure the building.

Mr. Dingman was unavailable for comment.

Thousands of readers like you have made Northern New York Newspapers the number one ranked website* for local news and sports coverage in the north country.

You can continue on to this article in a few seconds, or you can visit one of our websites:

• Watertown Daily Times
• The Ogdensburg Journal
• Daily Courier-Observer