NORTHAMPTON — Facing a form of self-perpetuating damage that Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra referred to as “concrete cancer,” the E.J. Gare Parking Garage needs to be either repaired or demolished — and neither option is cheap.
The garage faces an alkali–silica reaction that is deteriorating its concrete, along with spalling and other forms of significant structural damage, engineers from Hoffmann Architects told the City Council at its Thursday meeting.
Costs to remedy the damage range from a limited repair of the five-story garage’s lower levels, pegged at $2.5 million to $3 million, to demolition and construction of a new structure, which officials estimate will cost between $18 million and $33 million.
“It has what is colloquially called ‘concrete cancer,’ and there has been water infiltration that has caused corrosion of the rebar and significant spalling of concrete,” Sciarra said during a presentation to the council. “We will be moving very quickly to explore options and to do needed assessments to make the best decisions, including doing an updated parking study … we’ll be able to determine what the real needs are for whatever is going to happen in that space.”
Joining the mayor for the presentation on the garage’s state of damage were Robert Marsoli, director of engineering from Hoffmann Architects of New Haven, Connecticut; Angie Gregory, the city’s new Central Services director; and Chief of Staff Alan Wolf.
Marsoli described the garage as being in a state of “severe disrepair,” pointing through slides depicting significant spalling, structural corrosion and examples of alkali–silica reaction (ASR), which he described as a “self-perpetuating” damage for concrete.
Presenting options, Marsoli said a comprehensive repair of the entire garage would cost an estimated $7 million to $10 million. His firm doesn’t recommend this option, noting that the repair won’t completely halt the garage’s deterioration.
The limited repair option to fix the bottom floors where there is less damage is also pricey at between $2.5 million and $3 million and will still require future maintenance and repair.
“That’s clearly a significant financial investment, particularly for a 37-year-old parking structure. There’s a lot of challenges associated with a project of that scale and cost and clearly that doesn’t happen overnight,” Marsoli said. “There’s a design process that’s involved, a construction process that’s involved, and during all that time, the deterioration continues to worsen, particularly over winter months … there’s really no effective way to mitigate the ASR.”
The city closed the garage’s upper levels and stairwell earlier this year while Hoffmann Architects assessed its structural damage, leaving 220 of the garage’s 430 possible parking spaces open. Sciarra said the city has been spending roughly $9,000 a month since then for shoring and temporary maintenance of the garage to ensure its safety while city officials decide on a long-term strategy.
Hoffmann Architects recommends demolishing the garage rather than temporarily repairing it, noted Gregory.
The Central Services director suggested that after updating its downtown parking assessment, the city could either demolish the garage and create a surface-level parking lot with 110 spaces for an estimated cost of $3.3 million to $3.8 million, or build a full replacement of the garage for between $18 million to $33 million.
Gregory also floated the idea that the site could be put out to bid and sold for development, with the condition that the developer retain public parking spaces and public access to the sky bridge to Thornes Marketplace.
“If we were to replace the garage, obviously we’d need to do some design and make sure that we’re ensuring there’s still the use of that public space in-between,” she said. “We could be doing a financing model, we could look for a public-private partnership, we could put it out as a development, but we would need ask ourselves ‘how are we going to manage the maintenance in all those various scenarios?’”
Wolf presented an overview of the garage’s peak hours and months, explaining that he is trying to mitigate the “blow to the parking system” that the garage’s loss will represent, noting that there are currently 1,600 parking spaces downtown, between on-street parking and parking lots. He said the garage typically only fills up during large downtown events or winter storms.
Sciarra said she was working to finalize agreements with various parking lot owners throughout the city to use supplemental parking spots. At the 33 Hawley St. parking lot, for example, Sciarra said the city hopes to enter into a long-term agreement that would allow 70 spaces for public use.
Sciarra said she’s also been working with the owner and developer of the former Saint Mary’s church site at the corner of Elm and State streets to obtain temporary use of 20 parking spaces for city employees along the State Street side of that project.
Additionally, the mayor said Valley Community Development Corp. offered the city use of its parking lot near 33 King St., the former Registry of Deeds building, while that spot is developed into housing.
“We want to make sure that everyone’s informed of anything that’s going to be happening … we’re going to do a pilot on a shuttle [service], maybe for Bag Day is what we’re working on,” Sciarra said to the Council, referring to the annual shopping tradition that kicks off the local holiday shopping season on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
“We’ll be coming back to you once we figure out the next steps and come up with some direction, and then financing recommendations and to work on the plans that we’ll have to do together for this,” she said. “This is a big challenge — there’s no sugarcoating it. This is a big thing, but we are working on options, and we will come up with a solution.”
Council discussion
After the presentation, councilors reacted to the downtown garage’s condition, primarily expressing concerns about the current safety risk for residents and the significant costs associated with replacing the structure.
“The idea that the city could even conceive of running the liability of having something happen in that garage if it is deteriorating as quickly as has been noticed, even in the last few months, seems like a really bad idea,” said At-Large City Councilor Meg Robbins, who noted that a reduction in parking spaces from would be better than a resident being significantly injured.
“It does reduce the number of parking spaces extraordinarily, but … I know we would all feel absolutely terrible if a piece of garage fell on somebody who trusted us to park safely,” she said.
Other councilors, such as Ward 5 Councilor Aline Davis, asked how residents and neighboring businesses would be protected during the garage’s proposed demolition, and then noted that parking garage’s temporary closure for demolition, or reduction to a lower-capacity surface lot, might impact the city’s upcoming Picture Main Street project.
“A very important thing that I think will come up is the relationship to the Picture Main Street project … because this is where people park to go to the businesses,” Davis said. “Anything that councilors can do to help to keep the communication going [would be helpful].”
Responding to Ward 6 Christopher Stratton’s question about the estimated tax rate increase resulting from debt service on the repair versus replacement options, Finance Director Charlene Nardi explained that a $10 million debt would add an estimated 15 cents to the tax rate, while a $24 million expense would add 35 cents to the tax rate, or about $206 on the average tax bill.
Sciarra mentioned that she has been communicating with Sen. Joanne Comerford and Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, who are “on alert” for any potential state aide the city might request for the project.
