Published: November 28, 2008 09:27 am            

‘We have to deal with it’ | City must now find funds to raze garage

The city of Johnstown is now forced to do what a money shortage and apparent inertia prohibited in recent years.

The Washington Street parking garage must be demolished in wake of Tuesday’s shocking partial collapse of the 37-year-old, deteriorating structure.

We can all be thankful that the collapse occurred in the middle of the night rather than during a busy workday, when some of the garage’s 130 customers might have been there or other downtown visitors might have been walking through the garage.

We shudder to think what the headlines would have been had the garage come down on a warm afternoon during Thunder in the Valley.

And we are grateful that workers were not on the job in nearby offices – including the city parking and sewer offices that were located in the garage. Unfortunately, Beginnings Inc. and Blaine Boring’s Chocolates were ordered closed until the garage can be razed and the area is deemed safe.

In addition, parking customers will be moved to other downtown garages.

Areas of the garage have been closed to vehicles since August 2003 due to problems on the upper floors.

Indeed, a 2004 report found the garage to be “in very poor condition,” without actually recommending that the entire structure be closed.

That report did recommend that repairs be done (cost estimate: $2.6 million) or that the garage be replaced (estimate: $6 million). Neither of those options happened.

City officials say they were convinced that – despite the known problems – the garage was structurally sound, that there was no chance of a collapse. As recently as six months ago, a walk-through inspection was done.

“If I had spare money, we might have jumped on it earlier,” City Manager Curt Davis said on Tuesday. “But as it is, we basically were feeling that it was not a structural danger.

Davis added: “I certainly didn’t have anybody say to us, ‘Hey, I think this is dangerous.’ ”

As reported in 2004, various times since, and again in Wednesday’s editions of this newspaper, two consultants noted a variety of problems within the garage, including past repairs that were failing, leaking through and around concrete slabs, and corroded steel beams including one that “has lost the majority of its shear capacity and must be considered unstable.”

City council authorized accepting of bids for demolition in 2005, but nothing had been done.

An August report in The Tribune-Democrat was much like the many before it: Portions of the garage will remain closed but the structure is solid overall, and there is no money for repairs or replacement.

City fire Chief Anthony Kovacic said an investigation will be done, but not until the area can be stabilized.

And that means bringing down what remains of the Washington Street garage.

Can the cash-strapped city afford to do this? No, but there is no choice now.

Councilman Jack Williams said: “Now we have to deal with it.”

While we’re thankful that there were no injuries or fatalities, we do see two morals in this story:

n If you know your parking garage needs to be fixed, don’t wait until things are crashing down around you to take action.

And ...

n If you know a garage has problems but you park there anyway, you can’t blame someone else if something bad happens.

        

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