How should 2 State College parking garages be repaired? Council hears options
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- State College borough council weighs repair options for two aging downtown garages.
- Repairs to Pugh Street and McAllister Street garages will extend the garage service life
- Projected costs range from $111K to $1.9M depending on plan chosen.
The State College borough council will need to decide on repair plans for two downtown parking garages in the coming months.
The council heard from Kevin Carrigan, vice president of THA Consulting, a design firm that specializes in parking, about a condition assessment of the Pugh Street Garage and McAllister Parking Deck during its meeting Monday, where they were presented with two repair plan options for each parking garage. Both are nearing the end of their useful life but with some repairs, that can be extended.
The Pugh Street Garage has a four-year or a 10-year repair plan option. The four-year repair plan will cost the borough about $580,000 and the 10-year plan will cost about $1.9 million.
For the McAllister Parking Deck, the council has the option of a two-year plan at a cost of about $110,000 or an eight-year plan at about $640,000.
The borough hired THA Consulting to assess the Pugh and McAllister street garages. Carrigan and his team surveyed the garages in November last year to determine the condition and estimated remaining useful life of the garages. They also developed maintenance and repair plans, as well as cost estimates.
Tom Fountaine, borough manager, said they were exploring how to extend the life of the Pugh Street Garage beyond the current two and four year plans. They did structural reviews and analysis and had an end of life date for it, and then they started having issues with McAllister.
“Previous to last year, the plan that council had been working toward was to build a replacement structure on the site of the McAllister Street Garage. The borough has begun to acquire real estate for that purpose, and so the segment and the balancing in the years is based on still using that site ultimately,” Fountaine said. “... Both the length of time that council is willing to move this project through, as well as the the replacement locations, are issues that council needs to make some decisions on in the coming months.”
It could be a $2.5 million project total, he said, if the council decides to extend the life of the garages by eight and 10 years, with McAllister being taken out of service for the last two years of the 10-year period for the replacement.
Pugh Street Garage
Pugh Street Garage is about 53 years old and is nearing the end of its expected useful and design life.
“Both the structural and waterproofing systems are in poor condition. We didn’t observe any dangerous conditions. However, we did observe the loose ceiling at the concrete, which should be addressed this year to make sure it doesn’t fall,” Carrigan said. “There are very high levels of chlorides in the slab, which accelerates the deterioration process. Deterioration will continue to accelerate through the end of the service life. ... you should expect local concrete failures to occur through the end of the service life.”
Carrigan said they did not consider an overall refurbishment project for the Pugh Street Garage as it would be extremely expensive. Rather, he proposed either a four-year or a 10-year repair plan. Regardless of the plans selected, the garage will be decommissioned and demolished following the end of the determined plan.
The four-year repair plan would take a “selective approach,” where they’ll prioritize repairs and address dangerous conditions so the garage can be in a safe and operational condition through the end of its service life, Carrigan said.
With this plan, monitoring the garage is important. Carrigan recommended a consultant visit the garage twice a year so if an area is starting to become a dangerous condition, it can be addressed immediately. The monitoring frequency will increase as the garage ages.
The ten-year plan is a similar approach but more repairs will be needed in order to get to the ten-year service life, Carrigan said.
“There would be a larger repair program in 2025 and 2030 and then the monitoring process would start roughly four years prior to the demo,” he said. “It would be demolished roughly 2034-2035 time frame.”
With a longer use life and more repairs included, the ten year plan is more expensive than if the borough selects the four year plan. The four year repair plan is approximately $580,000 and the 10-year plan is about $1.9 million.
McAllister Parking Deck
The McAllister Parking Deck is about 34 years old. Some of its structural waterproofing systems are in poor condition and some localized failures at the entry lane to the second level were identified, Carrigan said. As soon as those were noticed, the borough put some temporary shoring in until a permanent repair can be done, he said.
The repair options for the McAllister Parking Deck are a two-year plan (roughly $111,000) or an eight-year plan (roughly $637,000), both followed by decommissioning and demolition.
Similar to Pugh, a selective, prioritized approach would be taken to address safety concerns and keep the garage open. The two year option would require monitoring through the end of the service life, and the eight year option would have larger repair projects in 2025 and 2029 to extend the life. Monitoring would begin after 2029.
“We did not consider a refurbishment project for McAllister. However, it could be considered and you could extend the life to roughly 20 years,” Carrigan said.
The council will review and discuss the options over the next several months, according to the council’s meeting agenda.
