WEST WARWICK, R.I. — The owner of the site of a 2003 nightclub fire that killed 100 people is donating the land for a permanent memorial, bringing an end to a years-long effort to secure the site of The Station fire by families of those killed and survivors of the blaze.
Dan McKiernan, a lawyer for Ray Villanova, transferred ownership of the plot of land in West Warwick to the Station Fire Memorial Foundation on Friday.
The donation occurred five months before the 10th anniversary of the blaze, which started when pyrotechnics for the rock band Great White set fire to flammable foam that lined the walls of the club.
A makeshift memorial consisting of homemade crosses, flowers, photos and other personal items cropped up on the site shortly after the fire and has been maintained there by family members of the dead ever since.
While the foundation has a design for a permanent memorial and pledges from construction workers to build it, nothing could move forward until it secured rights to the land.
The announcement comes the week after Gov. Lincoln Chafee and House Speaker Gordon Fox said they were looking into the legalities of seizing the land by eminent domain. McKiernan told The Associated Press the Villanova family had always wanted a “tasteful, somber and timeless memorial” at the site, and had been working on donating the land even as Chafee andFox made their comments. The one condition of the transfer is that a suitable memorial be maintained at the site in perpetuity.
In 2006, three people were criminally convicted of 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter: club owners Jeffrey and Michael Derderian and Great White tour manager Daniel Biechele.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 09/29/2012