Highland Heights Committee meeting

This comes from Amy Feran.

At a Committee of the Whole meeting on November 18th, the project manager from CT Consultants reported on the community center. He was called in after the contractor doing renovation work found water damage in several upright wood beams in the community center.

This is the update on the community center:

The beams at issue are load bearing. They are holding up a horizontal beam the runs across the top of the community room.

The water damage and dry rot in seven beams is quite severe. What they see above the floor is deterioration that began at the base of the beams.

The building is unsafe. The contractor will be asked to vacate the building today and no one will be allowed in until scaffolding, to help bear the load, is in place.

All activities scheduled for the community center through December have already been cancelled, and council directed that January activities be cancelled as well. This project could well run into and through February too.

If a heavy snow falls between now and when the scaffolding is installed, there could be significant structural failure in the building. Theoretically, the building, or part of it, could collapse. It's that bad.

When council asked if it could tour the building last night, the project manager indicated that they should not enter the building, for safety reasons, until the scaffolding was in place.

What they intend to do is to open up the floor, cut out a significant bottom portion of the beams, and replace the bottom portions with steel beams that will be bolted onto the top, solid portion of the wood beams---like amputating a leg below the knee and inserting a prothesis in the amputed portion's place.

They are not sure that the metal box in which the beams sit on the ground---which are bolted to the cement pad under the building---are still in good shape. If they are not, then the repair will be more extensive/costly b/c they will have to replace those as well.

They have now identified that a design flaw is the cause of the damage.

Apparently the beams are sitting in the earth. Possibly 4 to 8 inches into the earth. Although the relevant building standards for the time (1983) called for the use of pressure treated or similar wood, no such wood was used for these upright beams. While the problem would still probably evolved over time, even if water resistant wood had been used, it would not have occurred this quickly or to such an extent if proper building materials had been used. And if it had been designed to prevent water and moisture from the ground getting to the beams.

Because it is truly an emergency situation, council has decided that regular public bidding processes have to be dispensed with. (The law director almost jokingly stated that this is probably the most true emergency they have faced----an ironic reference, no doubt, to the fact that almost every resolution passed by council is passed as an "emergency measure".)

The project manager has been authorized to immediately procure a scaffolding contractor and to get the supporting scaffolding in place. He was given a rough dollar limit for that work. He also has been authorized to develop specifications for the restoration work, which will be submitted to three contractors that CT Consultants has worked with and is confident can properly perform the work. Council may have the contractors' responses by next Tuesday.

The projected cost, provided there are no other surprises unearthed---which is a real possibility---is $ 56,500 for the work and $ 12,5000 for the architectural and related professional services. The city has already spent approximately $ 2,500 getting the situation evaluated.

Council budgeted approximately $ 300,000 for the renovation work. Approximately $ 42,000 of that budgeted amount has not been committed or spent.

So, a very serious situation. Thank goodness it was discovered before anything devasting occurred. As one council member remarked last night, thank goodness we made it through election day. Can you imagine?