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Downtown scaffolding ‘expected’ down by fall
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The improvement work to the PNC Bank Building in downtown Youngstown was supposed to be finished by now. The work is expected to be done in four to six weeks, depending on whom you ask.
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Scaffolding has surrounded the PNC Bank Building in downtown Youngstown for more than three years. A Boardman company is placing steel strips on the structure to secure exterior granite to the building. When that work is done, the scaffolding will come down.
YOUNGSTOWN
The scaffolding surrounding a downtown building since May 2008 was supposed to be gone by now.
If all goes according to the latest plan to fix the exterior of the PNC Bank Building at Wick Avenue and Commerce Street, the scaffolding is “expected” be removed in four weeks, said an executive with the company that owns the structure.
“We expect to be completed in the next four weeks, with an emphasis on expect,” said David Rizzuto, director of operations and finance for Pan Brothers Associates, a New York City company that owns the building. Park South Development Co. LLC, a Pan subsidiary, manages the PNC Building.
Angel Ortiz, owner of AO Construction and Restoration, the Boardman company working on the building, said he’s trying to do the work properly and quickly, but the situation is worse than originally thought.
Ortiz said the work should take about 11/2 months to complete.
The original plan required 54 steel strips to be used to secure exterior granite to the building.
But Ortiz said Sunday that 60 percent more steel, about 32 additional strips, are needed.
The city had given the company until the end of July, based on a permit it issued in July 2010, to clean and caulk the granite panels on the building’s exterior and install steel strips between the panels to keep them in place.
“Progress” is being made and an end date is in sight so the city is allowing the work to continue past the permit expiration date, said Brenda Williams, the city’s chief building official.
“They are moving along,” she said. “We’re looking forward to the scaffolding coming down. But keeping it up while repairs are being done is a safety issue. We can’t remove the scaffolding whether or not we’re frustrated by it. I think everyone is frustrated at the duration of the project. As long as I see forward movement, I’m pleased.”
Ortiz said his company found five loose granite panels on the building’s exterior that need to be replaced. The granite is expected here from Italy by Wednesday, he said.
Rizzuto said in early April that the projected completion date was June 15. But by that date, only three of the steel strips needed to secure the exterior granite panels were on the building.
Since then, about a dozen more steel strips were installed.
In mid-June, the company’s local property manager said the work would be done before the end of July.
Rizzuto said the latest delay was caused by an increase in the scope of the project — specifically cleaning and caulking the granite.
But previous Vindicator articles about the project list that work as part of the company’s original plan.
Richard Mills, president of the Ohio One Corp., which owns five downtown buildings, has been critical of the lack of work done to the PNC Building.
With the recent work being done to PNC, Mills said, “It’s nice to see something happening after three years. Some progress is being made.”
Pan Brothers hired a company to place steel strips between the granite panels on the building because two large granite pieces fell from the building about 40 feet to the sidewalk in 2005.
The scaffolding was erected in May 2008 after the company acknowledged the incident from three years prior. No panels have fallen since.
Ortiz said five of them are loose and will be replaced.
The company did nothing else to improve the building’s exterior as it attempted to resolve a lawsuit with its insurance company over who would pay to replace the granite. The lawsuit was settled in November 2010 with the terms sealed.
A scaffolding permit from the city expired Jan. 24, 2010, but the scaffolding remains. The city threatened to file a lawsuit in June 2010. Instead, it gave the company a permit, that expired last month, to make the necessary improvements.