Rec. Bldg. contract expected

The proposed cost of the contract was $80,250 “as it stands today,” Harris said.

He said he would know more after meeting with the contractor about when work will start, how long it will take, and the duration of the street closure in front of the building. “That’s all going to be part of the discussion tomorrow,” he said.

The Recreation is actually three buildings, which were covered by a façade erected decades ago. The scope of work includes removing the roof on the westernmost building, which houses a bowling alley, and removing the front wall of the building that faces West Second Street.

The building is owned by the Columbia Gateway Urban Renewal Agency, but Todd Carpenter and Carla McQuade, owners of the Last Stop Saloon immediately to the west of the Recreation, are buying it from the agency and were in the process of renovating the trio of buildings when problems started developing over the summer.

The bowling alley building began showing signs of sagging as renovation work progressed. A rain event in August put an estimated 11.6 tons of water weight on the roof, Carpenter estimated earlier.

Shortly after that, the roof showed further signs of distress, and the front of the building began sagging, separating up to a foot or more from the roof.

The right lane of traffic in front of the building has been blocked off since mid-August.

Harris earlier told the city council the work would take an estimated two to three weeks.

Harris said the sequencing of the work is one of the discussion points for the Tuesday meeting.

“It would be the bowling alley portion of the building plus whatever else is needed to either be removed or shored up, basically reattached to the front of the building, until the remainder of the work on the other two buildings can proceed,” he said.

Engineer’s for the urban renewal agency’s insurance company found the August rain event would not have caused a structurally sound roof to fail. The engineer attributed it to long-term deterioration of components of the roof system.

The urban renewal agency declared an emergency in early September and directed staff to hire a contractor for the partial demolition.