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After three years, PNC Bank Building will shed scaffolding
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The scaffolding has been up since 2008. It was erected as a safety precaution in case some building panels would fall on the Wick Avenue side.
YOUNGSTOWN
An agreement between a city committee and the owners of the PNC Bank Building to make exterior improvements to the structure means the scaffolding that’s surrounded it for nearly three years should be gone by mid-June.
The city’s Design Review Committee has approved plans from Park South Development Co. LLC, which owns the downtown building, to install 54 steel strips between the granite panels on the exterior of the building, located at Wick Avenue and Commerce Street.
The work should start soon with a projected completion date of June 15, said David Rizzuto, director of operations and finance for Pan Brothers Associates, a New York City company that owns Park South Development.
“We’re committed to get the work done, and it will get done,” Rizzuto said.
Bill D’Avignon, the city’s Community Development Agency director and chairman of the Design Review Committee, said he’s glad the building will finally be improved and the scaffolding will come down.
“Everybody’s disappointed the scaffolding has been there for so long,” he said. “That’s the reason why we’re eager to get this project approved.”
Park South will install the steel strips — each about 20 feet long, 4 inches wide and a quarter-inch thick — between the granite panels on the building.
A couple of steel strips were placed on the eastern portion of the downtown building last week in order for Design Review Committee members to see what the structure will look like.
The color was off by a bit, D’Avignon said. But Park South officials say the company will clean the granite so the colors of the granite and the steel strips will blend, he said.
The project will cost about $250,000.
Two large pieces of granite fell from the building about 40 feet to the sidewalk in 2005.
The scaffolding was erected in May 2008 after the company finally acknowledged the incident from three years earlier. No panels have fallen since.
Park South did nothing to improve the exterior, except put up the scaffolding, since the granite fell until installing the two steel strips.
The company was in litigation with the Cincinnati Insurance Co., the building’s insurance company, over replacing the granite.
The insurance company wanted to pay about $15,000 to replace the two pieces of fallen granite. Park South wanted $1.8 million to replace all of the granite.
The lawsuit was settled in November 2010 with the terms of the deal sealed.
The scaffolding permit from the city expired Jan. 24, 2010, but the scaffolding was never removed.
An article in June 2010 in The Vindicator disclosed the expiration date. A day after that article, Park South submitted a proposal to the city to make the exterior improvements.
The city threatened to sue Park South for violating city code, but instead came to an agreement in late July 2010 to give the company 12 more months to make the improvements.