[T]he Department of Buildings and General Services (BGS) is recruiting a structural engineer to evaluate the integrity of a state office building in downtown Burlington.
BGS is looking into the structure of a parking garage below 108 Cherry St., which houses offices for the Vermont Department of Health.
According to Dave Burley, who oversees state facilities in the western part of the state, the parking structure is aging and has sustained damage from road salt. The underground garage was built in the early 1980s, he said, and a few years later the office building was added on top.
The four-story garage houses hundreds of parking spaces. “We’ve tried to take steps to help it last longer,” Burley said.
The potential structural issues have been on the department’s radar for about six years, Burley said, and BGS has been making an effort to minimize the damage to the garage.
On several occasions, the state has applied a membrane coating to the garage deck to try to protect the concrete from salt damage. For now, BGS has roped off about 25 parking spaces.
At this point, Burley said, there are no plans to relocate employees — that would depend on what the engineers find. He noted that there may be a temporary move depending on the repairs that BGS undertakes.
“It’s not going to collapse, it’s not that bad,” Burley said.
The Legislature appropriated $50,000 in the capital bill, a two-year budget that uses bonded dollars to fund infrastructure projects, in order to assess the damage in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
BGS has already issued a request for a proposal to hire a structural engineer to evaluate the garage, and Burley is optimistic that the evaluation will be done over the summer.
However, there is no money set aside for 108 Cherry St. in FY 2017. Burley said that the urgency of any construction projects on the garage would depend on the report from the structural engineers. If the situation requires immediate attention, BGS will likely ask for funding from the Legislature during the next session.
Meanwhile, city and state officials recently broke ground on a new Chittenden County Transit Authority station that will be located adjacent to the state office building.
Steve Carlson, project manager for the new CCTA station, said that he is aware BGS is assessing the structure of 108 Cherry St.
Carlson said the projects are “entirely separate and independent,” and he is not concerned about carrying out the construction project adjacent to the parking garage.