Salem’s $34 million Courthouse Square complex, which now needs $23 million worth of repairs to become habitable, proved to be a public relations nightmare for everyone connected with it.

Even Salem city officials got a black eye in the process, said Tom Phillips, the city’s building and safety administrator – and they weren’t even directly involved in the project.

City inspectors only reviewed the project’s building plans and inspected its construction in the late 1990s. Inspectors gave the project a thumbs-up. However, 10 years after the building was finished in 2000, it was deemed dangerously unsafe and vacated.

“What we saw from a lot of folks was a lack of trust as a result of the Courthouse Square structure,” Phillips said. “I wasn’t there at the time. Neither was the majority of my staff. However, we didn’t want to go pointing our fingers at anyone.”

What they did instead was become the first city building department in Oregon to gain the International Accreditation Service’s stamp of approval. Inspectors looked at Salem’s permitting, plan review and inspection services.

“Courthouse Square prompted this review,” Phillips said. “We really felt we ought to have a third party look at our department, and this is the only organization that reviews building departments.”

It was a helpful process to go through, he said.

“It caused us to evaluate all of our policies and procedures and establish a thorough quality assurance program,” Phillips said. “The organization annually reviews everything to make sure it’s still up to date. It makes us focus and tighten up our organization.”

Salem can be proud, IAS President Chuck Ramani said.

“It is a great achievement when a building department attains accreditation,” he said. “Salem has gone above and beyond the requirements to implement a number of innovative practices.”

Ramani’s organization is part of the International Code Council and provides an independent assessment and verification of the standards that building departments set for themselves.

“The value of obtaining this accreditation is it assures our citizens our building department is competent and up to the highest national standards,” Salem City Manager Linda Norris said.

The building department formally received its accreditation Oct. 10. At the time of the review, the department had 18 employees, including six certified inspectors, three certified plan reviewers and a structural engineer.

“We knew we were doing a great job, but we can always do better,” Salem Community Development Director Vickie Hardin Woods said. “We wanted to bring someone in to evaluate our program, make constructive criticism and affirm the quality of our operation.”

Phillips said he hopes that Salem residents find accreditation reassuring.

“Because we’re government, we have a higher standard to go by in terms of accountability and transparency,” he said. “It just fits in with my business that the public knows that when we say we’re doing a good job, it’s not just saying; someone has checked us out.”

Phillips said his staff members were already doing many of the things required for accreditation, but not all of them were properly documented.

“That sometimes meant inconsistency in the application of our procedures and the requirements of the building code,” he said. “The accreditation process insists on a consistent application of the building code through strong policies, procedures and quality assurance programs.”

Salem paid $15,000 for the first three-year accreditation, and annual renewals are estimated to cost no more than $6,000. City permit fees covered the initial cost.

“It costs a little bit of money, but it’s ultimately worth it,” Phillips said.

Work on the five-story, 163,000-square-foot Courthouse Square Building is scheduled to begin this week. Maryland-based Structural Preservation Systems LLC was awarded the contract to rehabilitate the structure, which is supposed to serve as both a city transit mall and a Marion County office building.

Jolene Kelley, a spokeswoman for Marion County, said workers will begin removing wallboards on Monday as a prelude to more intensive structural repairs. She added that anyone who wants to track the project can sign up for email updates at commissioners@co.marion.or.us or boards@cherriots.org.

The post Salem looks to restore public trust after Courthouse Square debacle appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Repairs are expected to begin on Salem Courthouse Square this summer.

On Monday, the owners of the complex voted unanimously to repair the complex, which was shuttered in 2010 because structural deficiencies made it unsafe.

The Marion County Board of Commissioners and the Salem-Keizer Transit Board of Directors issued a request for design-build services last November and selected the $22.9 million remediation plan earlier this month. But until Monday’s vote, the fate of the office building, transit mall and underground parking garage was up in the air.

County and transit officials are now set to begin contract negotiations with Maryland-based Structural Preservation Systems, the specialty contractor that submitted the winning proposal. The firm, which has worked on high-profile projects including the U.S. Supreme Court Building, the Guggenheim Museum and the new World Trade Center in New York City, suggests that its repair package will deliver a structurally safe building with a 50-year life span.

Once the contract is finalized, construction is expected to begin as soon as possible and last approximately 16 months.

Officials do not expect the extensive remediation to lead to higher taxes or reduced city services.

Local firms partnering with Structural Preservation Systems include Dalke Construction, Carlson Veit Architects, P.C., BMGP Engineers, and Environmental and Engineering Services (EESI).

The post Salem Courthouse Square repairs to begin in summer appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

More than a year has passed since the Courthouse Square building in Salem was declared unsafe and evacuated.

Now, after several investigations and lawsuit settlements, the owners are asking construction companies to weigh in before officials decide what to do next.

A group of more than two dozen contractors last week toured the Courthouse Square complex, which is jointly owned by Marion County and the Salem Area Mass Transit District. The walk-through was required for any company interested in responding to a request for design-build proposals for potential remediation work.

“This (request for proposals) is the first one that is actually asking people to come up with a proposed solution and a dollar amount,” said Dave Henderson, Marion County’s business services director. “So this is really designed to see what’s out there in the marketplace as far as how much it will cost to fix the building.”

To date, the only formal estimate on remediation costs came from an investigation conducted by . According to that report, repairs for the office building, business mall and North block would cost approximately $53 million.

“I wouldn’t hazard a guess (on remediation costs) at this point – that ball is clearly up in the air,” said Gill Wilbanks, president and principal engineer of Wilbanks King International LLC. Wilbanks attended the recent tour and is involved with several teams that are planning on responding to the RFP.

“A lot of people with a lot of experience are looking at this now; the county is right to throw it out there and see what people have to say,” Wilbanks said.

The $34 million Courthouse Square office building and transit mall opened at 555 Court St. in 2000, but by 2002, tenants were expressing concerns. Engineering studies in 2004, 2007 and 2009 uncovered a range of problems with the building. Then, in summer 2010, both the bus mall and the office building were declared dangerous structures when it was found that weight on the building’s columns was too great for the building to be considered inhabitable.

Golder Associates, the consulting company now serving as the owners’ representative, earlier this year presented a report tracing the building’s problems to structural engineer Mike Hayford, who worked on the project for Century West Engineering. Hayford, whose health was deteriorating at the time, was let go from the firm; he was replaced by an engineer who had recently earned his certification – potentially exacerbating mistakes.

Hayford died in 2002. A $1 million lawsuit with Century West Engineering is pending, according to Henderson. The county has settled lawsuits with contractor Pence/Kelly Construction, Arbuckle Costic Architects and five other subcontractors.

The recent tour of the 11-year-old building was led by Mark Liebman, a project manager for . After seeing the uneven floors, cracked walls and other signs of deficient engineering, several contractors asked for more details about the owners’ expectations of the construction effort, according to Liebman.

“Right now, the tenant has moved out and (the contractors’) questions were mainly about getting all of the systems operational – how much of that responsibility would fall on the contractor,” he said.

In an addendum issued this week, the owners clarified that at final completion, the building must be “fully functional and move-in ready,” Henderson said, adding that the owners will reinstall cubicles and desks.

“A fix is certainly possible,” Wilbanks said. “It’s an interesting challenge, but that’s what engineers like to do.”

He suggested that one potential fix would be to perform work similar to seismic upgrades typically done for older buildings. High-tech concrete, such as ductile concrete or carbon fiber, could be valuable in the remediation work as well, according to Wilbanks.

The owners have not committed to moving forward with building repairs, however. Demolition may ultimately be the answer, but no investigations into that option are under way.

“The RFP for remediation of the Courthouse Square complex is the first step in the decision process,” said Peggy Mitchell, contracts compliance analyst for Marion County. “The owners need to see this information first, and then we’ll proceed accordingly based on that information.”

The remediation proposals will be ranked based on technical merit, contractor qualifications, and the cost and timeline of the proposed solution. Interested companies must submit letters of intent by today, and proposals are due by Feb. 7, 2012.

The post Owners ask what’s next for Salem’s Courthouse Square building appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A forensic investigation of the structurally unsound Courthouse Square building in Salem concluded that the project’s problems came from its engineering.

The report, presented to Marion County this week by Golder Associates, includes an analysis by structural engineering firm Perbix Bykonen tracing the building’s problems to structural engineer Mike Hayford, who died in 2002.

The Courthouse Square building was completed in 2000 as a home for Marion County government offices. By 2002, tenants had grown concerned about the deteriorating quality of the building, including cracks and separation in finishes and unevenness in the floors. The first study on the building was conducted in 2002, and additional studies eventually led to the building being declared unsafe and evacuated last September, when it was found that weight on the building’s columns was too great for the building to be considered inhabitable.

Perbix Bykonen’s conclusion, according to the report, is, “Simply stated, that most of the serviceability and almost all of the safety concerns noted in the structure stem from various problems in the structural engineers’ work.”

The investigation found Hayford had responsibility for much of the faulty design. Hayford’s family claimed in a lawsuit that Hayford’s deteriorating health may have contributed to mistakes on the project. This problem was likely exacerbated when Hayford was let go from Century West Engineering, the engineering firm working on the project, and replaced with Timothy Terich, an engineer who had only recently earned his certification, according to the report.

According to Marion County business services director Dave Henderson, a $1 million lawsuit with Century West Engineering is still in process. The county has settled lawsuits with contractor Pence/Kelly Construction, Arbuckle Costic Architects and five other subcontractors.

The post Courthouse Square problems traced to late engineer appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

An investigation into the structural stability of the Courthouse Square building in Salem attributed many of the problems to poor design, poor materials and problematic construction methods.

The post Courthouse Square investigation photos appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Marion County officials and a special task force will consider which actions to take next after a $1.5 million found significant and expensive repairs would be needed to shore up the structurally unsound Courthouse Square building in Salem.

Among the findings was that remediation of the main building could cost nearly $40 million in total – compared to a replacement cost of about $46 million.

The 10-year-old structure and associated complex cost $34 million when it was initially built.

“The proposal involves coming in with steel beams under the existing floors, basically to shore everything up,” said Dave Henderson, Marion County’s business services director. “It would clearly be an extensive process to get that done.”

The study also recommended a $9.6 million replacement of the bus mall and a $147,926 demolition of the structure’s north block, which was intended for future use.

The investigation was conducted by Miller Consulting Engineers and SERA Architects of Portland.

Now that the report is finished, the 30-member Courthouse Square Solutions Task Force will take a deeper look at the data before it makes a final decision on what it will do with the site, said Jolene Kelley, a spokeswoman for the county.

“This is really just a starting point,” she said.

The task force, which includes three county commissioners, four members of the transit board and citizens from the local community, on Feb. 4 will begin meeting to discuss options, Henderson added.

“The task force wants to look at all the options – not just the ones presented in the report,” Henderson said.

The county had to move all of its offices out of the Courthouse Square building in September after the structure was declared “dangerous” and an attached transit mall was declared “imminently dangerous” by the city of Salem.

The study said the problems were caused by poor design, poor materials and problematic construction methods.

The county has tried to recoup losses wherever possible. It settled a lawsuit with contractor Pence/Kelly Construction for $900,000, and settled other suits with five subcontractors for $269,000 and with Arbuckle Costic Architects Inc. for $695,000.

A $1 million lawsuit with Century West Engineering is still in mitigation, and the county is still discussing its $29 million insurance claim with Affiliated FM.

The low cost of the settlements wasn’t ideal, but it was all the county felt it could get, Henderson added.

“The issue there is (whether) they have any assets that we might have been able to go after if we had gone to court,” Henderson said. “And they had almost no assets, so we felt we should settle and get what we could, rather than have them waste what few assets they had defending themselves from the lawsuit.”

The findings themselves weren’t a huge surprise to Henderson, but he said details of the shoddy work still cause him to shake his head.

Among the things the investigators found were bits of construction debris cast into the concrete ceiling of the bus mall, support columns that were too narrow to sufficiently hold up the top floors of the building and bent, unrepaired rebar sticking out of casting beds.

Sawdust also got into some of the concrete poured for the support structures, weakening it, Henderson said.

“There are spots where you can easily stick a screwdriver a few inches into what’s supposed to be concrete,” Henderson said. “In other places you can actually see ridges of rebar at the surface of concrete, rather than inside the structure.”

Of the major causes, the report blamed:

• “Poor design: inadequately designed structural elements, many significantly above code limits or beyond industry standards.”
• “Poor materials: significantly lower than specified concrete strength due to high water to cement ratios, excessive microfractures and debonding of the cement paste.”
• “Problematic construction: Poor consolidation of the concrete has resulted in water and air voids. Insufficient site supervision has resulted in debris in casting fields. A lax quality control environment has resulted in migration of concrete mixes.”

The county had to move offices from the building to several locations across Salem. Relocation cost $930,000 and three-year leases for the new offices cost $2.2 million, Henderson said.

Officials are still working through proposals for a forensic investigation requested on Nov. 29, and the county hasn’t yet decided on a contractor. That study would look at how all of this happened in the first place in hope of preventing anything similar from happening in the future.

“It’s scary, isn’t it?” Henderson said.

The post Causes pegged for Courthouse Square problems appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Marion County wants to know exactly what led up to the structural problems that have plagued the Courthouse Square building that once held its offices in Salem.

The agency is seeking a company to investigate the past of the 10-year-old, $34 million building, so structural problems that led to its closure won’t happen on any new projects, said Dave Henderson, Marion County’s business services director.

The study is not intended as a precursor to any new lawsuits, added Jolene Kelley, a spokeswoman for the county.

“At this point with litigation, what’s been filed is pretty much where we are, and this isn’t that,” Kelley said. “The purpose of this new investigation is really to find out what happened. We want a good, clear handle on how we got to where we are today.”

The study will be a sister document to a report that will analyze what is needed to fix the building. That report, estimated to cost about $1.5 million, is due to be finished next month, Kelley said.

“Solutions might involve demolition or repurposing of the structure,” she said.

Tenants of the building, which opened in 2000, vacated in September after the structure was declared “dangerous” and the attached transit mall operated by Salem-Keizer Transit was declared “imminently dangerous” by the city of Salem.

Things have grown even more dire since September, Henderson said.

“The bus mall has been deemed in danger of imminent collapse,” Henderson said. “The danger is a punching sheer failure, where the weight of the floor slab could punch through the supporting column.”

That means the floor at any time could drop over the support like a melting Popsicle sliding off its stick, he said.

Some parties involved in the project have already settled lawsuits with the county and the transit agency. This past summer, contractor Pence/Kelly Construction agreed to pay $900,000, five subcontractors agreed to pay a total of $269,000 and Arbuckle Costic Architects Inc. agreed to pay $695,000.

A $1 million lawsuit with Century West Engineering, the project’s engineer, is still in mediation, Henderson said.

However, $2.8 million is not a big payback for a building that cost $34 million to construct. The county and transportation group also had a $29 million insurance claim, but Henderson said that has not been resolved yet.

Structural problems first appeared in 2002 and grew progressively worse as the young building aged.

A document on the city’s website explains one pronounced incident on July 16 that eventually led to the early eviction of all tenants for safety reasons:

“The morning of July 16, 2010, a loud noise, described as an explosion or loud banging, was heard on the second, third and fourth floors of Courthouse Square. Employees on the second floor also reported feeling the floor vibrate. County and transit officials immediately called engineers. It was determined that the noise and vibration were likely, although not conclusively, caused by a ruptured post tension cable on the second floor,” according to a Frequently Asked Questions segment.

County offices forced to leave the building have moved to several locations across Salem. The relocation itself cost $930,000 for planning, tenant improvements and equipment, Henderson said.

Leases for new offices cost $2.2 million, he added.

“We signed three-year leases on all of our properties,” Henderson said. “We did not think we’d be able to get back in there before that.”

The county released its request for proposals for the forensic investigation on Nov. 29.

The document describes issues with the structure that “have resulted in damage to building finishes – including significant interior cracks, deformation of ceiling systems, uneven floors and door and window openings racking and jamming, as well as structural deficiencies in the parking garage.”

Proposals are due on Dec. 23, and a mandatory pre-proposal walk-through at the building at 555 Court St. N.E. will take place Wednesday at 9 a.m.

The county expects the investigation will take 60-90 days, Henderson said.

The post Study sought for Courthouse Square debacle appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Salem courthouse will remain vacant after a second round of testing strengthened the claim that the $34 million building completed in 2000 isn’t structurally safe enough for public workers to occupy it.

The newest strength tests, completed by Professional Services Industries Inc., confirmed tests done earlier this year by Carlson Testing Inc. Both tests found the concrete floor slabs to not be up to initial design specifications. The concrete was supposed to be able to support a minimum of 5,000 pounds per square inch, but both tests measured pounds per square inch from 3,000 to 4,600.

“We had another firm run the second set of tests just to confirm that the problem exists,” said Dave Henderson, Marion County’s business services director, “and it confirmed what we thought.”

The building, which is owned by both Marion County and the Salem-Keizer Transit District, has had structural issues since 2002 when the building was settling. The issues weren’t considered dangerous until this summer when a cable in one of the building’s concrete floors ruptured. When the county looked into the problem, officials noticed that 33 to 35 of the building’s 220 columns were bearing a weight that is more than code allows.

Both the county and the transit district moved employees out immediately. The county signed a handful of three-year leases around town.

But, as Henderson pointed out, the new tests haven’t determined the fate of the building, yet. The county expects the results of a petrographic analysis – a microscopic analysis of the concrete’s void spaces – and a few other tests within the next ten days.

“There’s a bunch of different avenues we could go down here,” Henderson said. “They range from a demolition of an entire block to some minor repair work.”

The post Salem Courthouse structural problems confirmed appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Tenants of the Courthouse Square office building in Salem have been ordered to vacate the building 30 days sooner than planned, after receiving word from a engineer that the building has 11 columns stressed to over 150 percent of their capacity.

“We have received our formal notice to abate a dangerous building from the city, and we were ordered to vacate in 60 days or repair the deficiencies in that time, which we know couldn’t be done, or demolish the building, which we won’t do,” said Dave Henderson, the Marion County’s business services director. “So we’re vacating.”

The building, which has suffered structural problems starting just two years after it opened, received new information on July 29 about the building’s columns, which prompted the city to officially label the building as dangerous and order it vacated in 60 days.

“We had engineers from Miller Consulting Engineers and the city’s engineers in the building on July 24 and they found cracking around some of the columns,” Henderson said.

A report following an incident on July 16, when Henderson said a cable in one of the building’s concrete floors was believed to have ruptured, found that 33 to 35 of the building’s 220 columns where bearing a weight that is more than code allows. The finding caused the county to state it would vacate the building in 90 days.

The new report from Miller found that one of the columns on the third floor had actually punched through the slab floor.

Henderson said the tenants of the building, including Marion County government offices and Salem-Keizer Transit agency, are still working in the building until a plan to vacate the building is put together.

“Operations are continuing, but we’re putting together plans right now to relocate everyone and vacate the building by the end of September,” Henderson said.

The county last week in March reached a $1.8 million dollar settlement with the architects and contractors involved in the building’s construction. Henderson said the county is looking to have a report on the overall condition of the building sometime in October.

The post Salem orders Courthouse Square vacated appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A settlement has been reached in the lawsuit filed against contractors for work done on the structurally-deficient Courthouse Square building in Salem.

Contractor Pence/Kelly Construction will pay $900,000 to Marion County and the Salem-Keizer Transit District, the building’s owners. In addition, Pence/Kelly’s five subcontractors will pay a total of $269,000 toward the settlement. The building, at 555 Court Street NE in Salem, has been plagued by continued structural issues.

In 2006, Marion County and the transit district pointed the finger at the contracting team and architecture firm Arbuckle Costic Architects Inc. for failing to build a structurally sound building. The building houses the county’s and transit district’s offices, as well as several retail spaces.

Arbuckle Costic Architects settled with the county and transit district in January for $695,000, according to Arbuckle Costic vice president Clayton Vorse. The total settlement to the city is around $1.8 million.

“On the advice of our insurance company, we were advised to settle,” Vorse said. “We didn’t feel like we had any contribution to the problems there.”

Engineers last week determined the building was too unsafe to occupy and told tenants to vacate the premises within 90 days. A $500,000 engineering study will soon be under way to find out what needs to be done to fix the structure.

The post $1.8M settlement reached for Courthouse Square appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.