State College Borough Council is considering how long — and at what cost — it will extend the life of two deteriorating parking garages before both are decommissioned and replaced with one or more new structures.
At Monday night’s meeting council heard an overview of assessments and repair options for the 53-year-old Pugh Street garage and 34-year-old McAllister parking deck from Kevin Carrigan of THA Consulting, a parking planning and engineering firm that has worked on multiple borough facility projects.
THA found both garages have structural and waterproofing systems in poor condition, and developed options to keep them in service during a two-to-four-year range and eight to 10 years before they would need to be demolished. Neither currently have “dangerous conditions,” Carrigan said.
The shorter term option would prioritize repairs over a four year period for the Pugh Street garage and two years for McAllister Street at a total cost of about $682,000.
A longer term option would involve more repairs over a 10-year period for Pugh Street and eight years for McAllister at a cost of about $2.5 million.
The borough’s tentative plan — though far from finalized — is to tear down the smaller McAllister deck and construct a new, large garage before the Pugh Street facility is demolished. It used eminent domain to acquire an adjacent property containing a rental house at the corner of Beaver Avenue and McAllister Street in anticipation of constructing the new garage, but rescinded a plan to do the same with the neighboring building that houses The Brewery and other businesses.
THA conducted assessments in November, and has evaluated the structures again since then, after the borough began to look at extending the life of the garages beyond the current two-to-four-year plan.
“We had been doing structural reviews and analysis and we had an end-of-life date for Pugh Street. Then we started to have some issues at McAllister so we started to look at that,” Borough Manager Tom Fountaine said. “Previous to last year the plan that council had been working towards 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, so the segment and the balancing of the years is based on still using that site ultimately, but both the length of time that council is willing to move this project through, as well as the replacement locations, are issues that council needs to make some decisions on in the coming months.”
Fountaine said the borough can be ready to move forward with constructing a replacement on the shorter time frame.
“That was really the trajectory that this project had been on until last summer anyway,” he said. “I think you’re looking at two years to get final acquisitions of any remaining property that needs to be taken and final plans for the garage, then two years for construction. So I think that’s still doable in that time frame.”
But council needs to decide if the McAllister site will be the plan for the new garage, as well as if it will replace all the parking for both the Pugh and McAllister facilities.
If it does, 218 spaces from the McAllister deck will be offline during demolition and construction. But the borough may also decide to build a second structure as well, in which case Fountain said they would likely be looking at the area behind the municipal building and Schlow Library, both of which have parking shortages of their own.
Council President Evan Myers said its a choice between moving at the originally planned quicker pace and spending less money on repairs, or having more time that “might enable us to make a better choice so we don’t have to be rushed.”
Council member Matt Herndon said he appreciates the possibility of having more time to make a decision for what Fountaine said will be “a very expensive project” in constructing the replacement.
“It’s great to see that we have longer life options on the table for these garages, because as I’ve said before, I expect that we’re going to see a lot of changes in the future, things like self-driving cars. Those are expanding to cities across the country. How is that going to change our need for parking?” Herndon said. “If we don’t have to decide this in two years but instead in eight or 10, we can have a lot more information before we commit to a very expensive project.”
Carrigan also said that the borough can change course if it wishes to accelerate the timeline, but recommended it do so before major repair projects are scheduled to occur.
CURRENT CONDITIONS
The Pugh Street garage’s end of life has been a topic of discussion among borough officials for more than a decade. Constructed in 1972, the 491-space facility is a cast-in-place, post-tensioned concrete structure.
“In the early ’70s, the durability design for post-tensioning in garages wasn’t what it is today,” Carrigan said.
THA observed overhead ceiling slabs spalling and cracking, the most pressing issue that Carrigan said should be repaired within the next year, “otherwise the concrete could become loose over time and eventually fall.”
Material testing found “a very high level” of chloride — largely from road salt tracked into the garage — in slabs throughout the building, which Carrigan said accelerates the deterioration process.
Floor slab delamination and cracking, traffic deck coating deficiencies. column spalling and cracking and exterior beam cracking and leaching, facade grout failures and corroded and cracked pipes were among other issues identified.
Carrigan said after the November assessment, he monitored the garage in May and this week.
“I do see continued deterioration, and it’s continuing to get worse,” he said.
The short-term option for repairs would cost about $571,000, while the longer term would be $1.9 million. For the latter, large repair programs would take place this year and 2030, with smaller project in other years.
In either case, Carrigan said, monitoring to quickly address any serious issues will be “very criticial.”
THA did not consider an overall refurbishment of the garage.
“It would be very, very expensive to refurbish this garage at this point, considering the high level of chlorides and the accelerated rate of deterioration,” Carrigan said.
The McAllister Deck, meanwhile, was constructed in 1991. It is a precast structure that Carrigan said is “not as durable,” as one like the Pugh garage that is cast in place.
The deck has experienced localized slab failures and the borough has put in temporary supports to ensure it is safe until a permanent repair is performed.
It has cracking and spalling on floors, ceilings and retaining wall buttresses, beam spalling and joint sealant failures, among other issues.
Chloride levels in the concrete “are generally low,” Carrigan said.
“However, there are many cracks, and those cracks allow water and chlorides to get directly to the reinforcing,” he said. T”hat’s why there is still a lot of chloride induced deterioration occurring throughout the.garage.”
The two-year option for McAllister repairs would cost about $111,000. The eight-year option is $637,000, with the largest repair projects occurring within the next year and in 2029.
THA did not evaluate at a total refurbishment plan for McAllister, “however it could be considered and you could extend the life to roughly 20 years,” Carrigan said.
Council discussions and decisions about the repair options and the Pugh garage and McAllister deeck replacement plans “will take place over the next several months,” Fountaine said.
