Residents displaced by a fire at their Parliament St. highrise last summer have a long road ahead before they will be able to return home, as the landlord is now saying they won’t be able to hit an earlier August re-occupancy target.

Restoration work at the St. James Town building was paused during another fire at the highrise Wednesday, but Danny Roth, a spokesperson for Wellesley-Parliament Square (WPSQ), the building management, says there is no indication Wednesday’s fire will harm efforts to get the structure ready for the return of 1,500 residents displaced last August, after a six-alarm fire.

“This should not have any impact on the timelines anticipated for the re-occupancy of 650 Parliament,” Roth said Wednesday afternoon, adding that a class-action lawsuit filed by residents stands be a greater threat to getting residents, currently living in limbo in temporary housing, back home before the end of the year.

Though a preliminary August re-occupancy date had been floated a few months ago, Roth said it’s now “almost impossible to give people an accurate re-occupancy date,” because of the court proceedings. No residents have been living in the building since last August’s fire.

“We were hoping to start the re-occupancy in August,” he said. “We’ve been advising people that, that does not look like the case. Certainly, giving how difficult and slow the process has been.”

Read more:

A look inside 650 Parliament, where fire restoration is expected to last until at least August

650 Parliament damage ‘the worst I have seen for that type of fire,’ deputy fire chief says

650 Parliament St. students finish a school year spent ‘living in limbo’ following St. James Town fire

At best, residents might be back in the comfort of their units by year’s end.

“You’re looking at much later in the year, and potentially beyond,” he said.

“Every decision that we would normally have been making, which we believe would be in the best interest of our residents, now are absolutely beholden to the court process,” Roth said.

The class-action lawsuit seeks compensation for displaced residents. Tenants are disputing how the landlord proposes conducting the relocation of personal items left in more than 550 units.

The landlord argues not being able to removes contents is creating delays.

Ted Charney, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said the judge has yet to rule if the landlord can move the items from the units to the underground garage.

Charney claims that the landlord had started entering the units, in February, to box up items.

“They didn’t ask permission,” he said, adding that the landlord is trying to get the judge to clear the move. “The delay is because the landlord won’t agree with the tenants’ conditions for relocating the items downstairs.”

Wednesday’s fire, inside a 15th floor unit in the building, forced dozens of workers conducting repairs to flee.

Fire officials, called to the building at around 8 a.m., confirmed that no one was hurt, and several dozen contractors conducting repairs at the time were safely evacuated.

“This building doesn’t appear to have too much luck right now,” said district fire chief Brian Kelly.

Based on his observation of the damage done last August, Kelly said it “looks like they’re progressing well on getting things fixed up.”

There were some clothing and furnishings piled up inside the middle of the unit at the time of the fire, Kelly said.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Though crews were on the floor doing work, there is no indication that anyone was inside the unit when the fire started. The fire was confined to the kitchen, but smoke spread throughout the building.

Preliminary estimates show that damage caused by the fire could be in the range of $15,000 to $20,000, Kelly said. The cause of the fire is not yet known.

Roth said the landlord has paid well more than $10 million in assistance to tenants and more than $20 million has been invested in repairs to date.