By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Two projects related to city-owned downtown parking facilities in Glasgow still have final planning and design work that must be completed before work can be done.
Certain aspects of the parking structure the city has along West Water Street between North Race and North Green streets have been closed off from public use since June, after a preliminary evaluation of the facility by Qk4, an engineering and planning firm. The access ramp from North Race – more specifically, the bottom of the ramp where it joins the structure – and the pedestrian bridge to the elevator remain closed, and parking underneath the structure at the ground level is barred, as some of the surface material from the ceiling there has come loose and has fallen.
After that initial assessment, the company looked more deeply at the issues and made general recommendations to city officials, and those have been prioritized.
The rear of the Barren County Government Center is near the parking structure, and a generator for that building is between them. The wiring for that generator is at least partially underneath the walkway and must be moved before progress can be made there by the city. That relocation process has a few steps that are in the works, as previously reported by Glasgow News 1.
Meanwhile, the design work to repair the abutment at the base of the ramp from North Race Street has been completed, said Jim McGowan, superintendent of the Glasgow Department of Public Works. He said the bid documents are being prepared and he expected that they would be set to advertise in the next week or so for bids to get that repair work done. Once a contract is awarded, that work would likely be done within roughly 90 to 120 days, he said.
Qk4 has provided price quotes to the city to design the repairs for the other two issues as well, and contracts for them to do that are ready, but probably won’t be finalized until after a contract is awarded on the ramp work. He wasn’t sure whether they would be done simultaneously or one first and then the other.
“The main concern was to get people to where they could use that [structure] from both ends – on the east and west side – first, and then once we get that out to bid, then we can look at doing the pedestrian way as well,” he said. “That’s what we’re going to be looking at next.”
The final priority of those three issues is the ground level. Although surface material was coming off the ceiling, McGowan said the examinations have shown it is structurally sound.
The structure can still be accessed from North Green Street, and uncovered parking is available at the ground level as well.
The City of Glasgow also owns a parking lot accessible from the west side of the Glasgow Public Square and North Liberty Street. The support wall along the northern side of that lot has some maintenance issues that need to be addressed; to that end, the city accepted the donation early last year from then-Councilman Patrick Gaunce of an adjoining property, 210-216 W. Main Street, providing the city clear access to most of that wall to perform any work necessary to sure it up. Subsequently, the buildings on the lot were demolished and the site cleared.
Initially, there was some suggestion the city could create a small “pocket park” there, but at this point, there is no specific or definite plan for the property other than getting that wall secured for the future.
McGowan said the same company, Qk4, got a geotechnical investigation done by a subcontractor regarding the wall’s structural stability and such, and some surveying has been done as well. He said the firm has the results of that field work and is weighing the findings to determine what recommendations it will make to the city, and he expects that report to be done by mid-January. Once the city determines which path it wants to follow, then Qk4 would create designs for the solution(s) chosen, McGowan said.
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