Efforts continue to repair Third St. building

TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Crews are continuing to make repairs to a structurally compromised building at the corner of Third and Buchanan streets, but various engineering concerns mean the work won’t be completed until sometime after the first of the year. While nothing much has changed on the outside, Municipal Code Enforcement Officer Jim Wiederholt said workers have made significant progress, including the installation of “sister joists” in the basement supporting both the first floor and a newly constructed and reinforced section of interior wall.

From the outside it may not look like much is happening with regard to ongoing repair of an aging brick building at the southeast corner of Third and Buchanan streets that was evacuated and declared “dangerous and unsafe” last month after an exterior wall started bowing dangerously outward.

But Municipal Code Enforcement Officer Jim Wiederholt said Thursday that’s because all the work, which he described as progressing steadily, has been going on inside.

Workers from Bombara Masonry of Maryville, Wiederholt said, have achieved significant progress in making structural repairs to the decades-old building just a block off the downtown square.

Tasks completed so far include installation of “sister joists” in the basement designed to reinforce the original ground-floor joists whose degradation over time caused the structure’s west wall to buckle and shift.

Workers have also installed additional bracing, replaced a large portion of basement wall, and this week moved upstairs to begin similar work on the first floor.

Originally the city had hoped construction would be complete by the end of the year. But Wiederholt said a number of “unforeseen conditions” requiring additional engineering consultations have set that timeline back.

Currently, he said, there is no way to predict when the job — which has forced the city to close Buchanan between Third and Second streets — might be competed.

In addition to hiring Bombara, property owner Mike Smith has engaged Shuck-Britson, a Des Moines, Iowa, structural engineering firm, to oversee efforts to salvage the two-story structure.

“Obviously, the city wants the repairs finished as soon as possible,” Wiederholt said, “but due to the precarious nature of the work we certainly want it to be conducted in a safe manner.”

The existing west wall of the building consists of at least two layers of masonry, the original brick and a later exterior lamination made of cinder blocks. Wiederholt said it was the interior brick wall that shifted first, due to the weakening joists, which forced the block facing to bow outward.

That means that the original wall has to be repaired, and to an extent replaced, before crews move to the outside of the structure.

Once exterior work begins, Wiederholt said, workers will replace a 10-foot-high section of the block wall extending 48 feet from north to south.

In the meantime, wooden beams anchored to the street with rebar stakes are being used to stabilize the wall and prevent further movement.

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

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

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 or some other strengthening framework.