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Courthouse gets high-level probe
Photo
A highlift is used to inspect, measure and photograph the roof overhang on the Front Street side of the courthouse in preparation for the $6 million restoration of the historic building that will begin this summer.
YOUNGSTOWN
An architect and a structural engineer recently ascended more than 100 feet on a highlift, closely examining, measuring and photographing the rooftop features of the 103-year-old Mahoning County Courthouse in preparation for its restoration.
“It’s a jewel in the center of town, and we want to restore it,” said James Fortunato, county purchasing director.
“We have an excellent historical restoration team, and we’re anxious to get this moving,” Fortunato said of the restoration project, which will begin this summer and could extend into 2015.
“It’s important to save the [historic] buildings to save the history of Youngstown,” said Mike Sanbury, an intern architect with Chambers, Murphy & Burge of Akron, which specializes in restoring historic architecture.
The courthouse, which has a granite exterior and a marble interior, opened March 6, 1911, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sanbury and Michael A. Mazzocco, a structural engineer with Barber & Hoffman of Cleveland, have been ascending in the highlift bucket in recent days to investigate the building’s exterior for “any potential damage to the terra cotta and the granite,” Sanbury said.
Terra cotta is molded clay brick or block.
“You want a full understanding of what’s going on in the building,” Sanbury said. “You want to understand how it’s put together and how the structure works and how the stones work and how it’s all connected,” he said of the aerial examination.
Fortunato said he hopes Sanbury and Mazzocco will present their report to the county commissioners in about two weeks.
Their assessment will “determine what needs to be done, the best way of doing what needs to be done and a time frame,” and the sequence in which the tasks should be completed, Fortunato said.
The assessment will give the commissioners restoration options before the bidding process for the work begins, he added.
The county commissioners hired ms consultants inc. of Youngstown for $510,000 in January to oversee the building’s $6 million restoration and preservation.
In 2011, another structural engineer, Carol Stevens, had expressed concerns about the potential collapse of the support structure, from which copper rooftop statues were removed in October 2010 and over which a temporary roof has endured four winters.
Rusted carbon steel beams support granite slabs in the pedestal.
The 2011 report also cited dangers posed by rusted carbon steel anchorages that once secured the rooftop cornice and balustrade.