It's getting expensive for the City of Ottawa to keep a downtown intersection closed after a building partially collapsed there three weeks ago.

"Last week it was up to $300,000 for police," said Coun. Diane Holmes, who represents Somerset ward, where the closed-off intersection is located.  

The Somerset House building, on the southeast corner of Bank and Somerset streets, partially collapsed during renovations on Oct. 19, and it can't be reopened until engineers have ensured the building isn't at risk of further collapse.

The city will try to bill the owner to get back the money it has spent keeping the intersection closed, Holmes said.

Business owners in the area, who feel they should also be compensated for lost business from the street closures, will also have to turn to the owner of the building, she said.

But she added that three weeks is too long for a downtown intersection to be closed, and that the city should take matters into its own hands.

Legally, the city doesn't have to wait for the owner's engineer to report on the building's stability. It could send its own engineers and bill the owner afterward, she said.

"But I think we have never been that proactive before," Holmes said. "It seems to be extremely difficult for staff to come to grips with the fact that legislatively, we can do that."