Engineer: Downtown building can be salvaged

PHIL COBB/DAILY FORUM
This photographs shows a small section of the original brickwork used to construct a currently evacuated building at the corner of North Buchanan and West Third streets in downtown Maryville. City officials tagged the structure unsafe early this month after receiving reports of a dangerously unstable wall. On the basis of a recently completed engineer’s report, property owner Michael Smith has told officials he intends to repair the building, which will require replacing a portion of the wall and shoring up existing joists and bearings.

An aging brick building declared “dangerous and unsafe” earlier this month after an exterior wall began to bow dangerously toward the sidewalk near the corner of West Third and North Buchanan Streets will not necessarily have to be torn down, Municipal Code Enforcement Officer Jim Wiederholt said Wednesday.

The building, located at 124 W. Third St. at the west end of one of the city’s oldest blocks in terms of architecture, was evacuated and tagged unsafe on Nov. 2 after city officials responded to a call from a “concerned citizen,” who reported that a brick wall, overlaid with plaster and cinderblocks, appeared unstable.

Wiederholt said at the time it was obvious the building’s west wall had shifted considerably. He added that information gained from a tenant following the initial report indicated the condition of the structure had worsened over the previous few days.

The ground floor of the two-story structure contained Miss Whitney’s Elite, a dance studio, and the second story had been converted into three apartments, two of which were occupied.

On Wednesday, Wiederholt said his office received a report on the building’s condition from Shuck-Britson Consulting Engineers of Des Moines, Iowa, which was hired by local resident Michael Smith, who owns the Third Street structure.

Based on Shuck-Britson’s findings, Wiederholt said, Smith is planning to move forward with stabilizing the building, rather than demolition, and has hired local masonry contractor Dave Bombara to make the necessary repairs.

Bombara has already secured the wall with temporary wooden supports consisting of beams braced against the structure at an angle and anchored to the sidewalk. As an extra precaution, the city set up barricades closing North Buchanan to traffic between Second and Third streets.

Wiederholt said the engineering report blamed the failing wall on rotted wooden bearings supporting ground-floor joists that have allowed the wall to rotate inward in response to exterior soil pressure.

This has caused cracking and bowing along the wall’s exterior surface, damage that Shuck-Britson described as “significant” and in need of “immediate repair.”

In order to make the wall stable again, the report continued, joists supporting both the first and second floors will have to be shored up.

Shuck-Britson is also recommending installation of support beams along the west wall and replacement of the wall wherever rotation-based damage has occurred.

“Basically what they’re going to do is shore it up and remove the bad part of the wall,” Wiederholt said.

He added, however, that just how much of the wall must be replaced depends on what workers find once they remove years-old layers of plaster and masonry applied over the original brick.

“We won’t know until they get in there,” Wiederholt said.

While he hasn’t spoken with the property owner since reviewing the engineer’s report, Wiederholt has met with Bombara, who went over the findings and studied an accompanying drawing.

Like a number of structures in downtown Maryville erected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Third Street building is constructed of “unreinforced masonry,” meaning it was built — as once was common practice — using brick and stone unsupported by a grid of metal bars, called rebar, or some other strengthening framework.

So essentially the wall consists of little more than common bricks laid into century-old mortar.

The next step in proceeding toward repairs, Wiederholt said, will be to meet with both Smith and Bombara in order to come up with a work schedule.

“Obviously the city wants the building to be repaired and the street to be opened in a timely manner,” he said. “But obviously we want it to be done in the safest manner possible.”

But even with winter approaching, Wiederholt believes it is “definitely possible” for construction to be completed by the end of the year.

“That’s the goal,” he said.