City Council: Pave paradise, fix up a parking lot -- but no fun to stay at the YMCA

We've talked here before about the increasingly-iffy chances of the City buying up the old Trinity Ave. YMCA, in use these past years as the Duke Diet & Fitness Center.

In recent weeks, the speculation on the center has been that it would fall out of the Capital Improvement Projects list given the city's hesitation on adding capital projects that would bring operational expenses with them, the way that staff expenses for a rec center would.

At this Thursday's City Council meeting, it looks like we'll get an answer on the City's direction -- and one that doesn't look promising at all for the Trinity Ave Y acquisition.

In fact, City staff are proposing essentially de-funding the project entirely, in order to devote almost the entire $3.3 million allocated to a surprising source: the repair of the Durham Centre parking deck downtown, which turns out to be in much, much worse shape than expected.

The cost of fixing the Durham Centre parking deck is set to double, with the total potential public sector investment for the deck rising to over $8.2 million dollars -- such that on a per-space basis, it'll cost almost as much to repair this deck as it would to build a hypothetical new one.

The deck's been in bad shape for some time, with forty spaces blocked off for the past four years after some concrete began falling off of the underside of the upper-west level of the deck. Studies in 2002, 2003 and 2007 found "structural deterioration caused by water infiltration over time" -- but apparently the damage was more serious than expected.

And the source of this water infiltration?

All of these studies confirm structural deterioration caused by water infiltration over time. The tiered nature of the parking floors is one avenue for water intrusion, which cannot be corrected. Based on the study of the deck’s condition, it is suggested that the deterioration was further accelerated by the absence of waterproofing on the plaza in the area of the footprint for the second building, no operational maintenance to the waterproofing of the landscaped areas on the plaza or the expansion joints throughout the deck, and anecdotally, excessive loading of snow on the upper level after the snowstorm of 2000 (which may have caused the deflection of the floor slab on the upper level).

Instead of just needing to repair the expansion joints and add waterproofing to the plaza, though, further evaluation has found that "widespread repair" of the concrete slabs themselves (including demolition and reconstruction of portions) in a significant portion of the deck to salvage the structure, much more of which has now been blocked off from traffic.

It's a fairly staggering increase in cost overall; the public-private partnership between the City and Craig Davis Properties to work on the Durham Centre deck will double, with the public portion of the investment rising from $4.2 million to $8.2 million.

That comes to over $11,000 per parking space for the repairs. That's a staggering number, given that new structured parking deck spaces can run less than $15,000 or so per space on average, as we learn from this H-S article on Heritage Square:

Plans for [Scientific Properties' Andy] Rothschild's seven-building replacement of Heritage Square call for 1,463 parking spaces. Of those, 511 spaces are supposed to go underneath buildings. The remaining 952 would be in the deck.

Rothschild said the reason downtowns in many cities hadn't attracted new investment was that it was far cheaper for developers to build surface parking on suburban tracts than to build decks on cramped urban sites like those at American Tobacco and Heritage Square.

Given that decks cost $11,000 to $14,000 per parking space, "the impact is enormous," he said.

If circumstances were different, it would be almost cheaper to tear down the deck and rebuild it from scratch.

Unfortunately, though, the fact that we have a big ol' tower right on top of a pedestrian-unfriendly parking deck means that you can't exactly bring down the deck without bringing down the skyscraper, too.

It's further ironic to hear the suggestion that the unbuilt western-side tower pad's lack of waterproofing might have contributed to the deterioration -- given the two-decades-plus wait for a future office or residential structure to be built there, and the aggressiveness of a deck build-out to support the site in advance of the tower construction.

Assuming that Council goes along with this move, don't look at a new future for the Trinity Ave. YMCA anytime soon.

Though at least with its parking deck fixed, the Durham Centre isn't going anywhere, either.

Comments

[Tar Heelz]

One wonders whether half of that deck could be entirely removed and still provide plenty of parking for the Centre.

In so doing, costs are reduced and a clean building site could be created.

[Michael Bacon]

Is tearing down the western half of the deck structurally possible?

[eah919]

I am not a lawyer, but doesn't it seem there's been some negligence in the design or construction of that structure? No waterproofing?

[JDC]

One more reason to tear out the entire complex completely and put in something that's not only useful but perhaps something that isn't so ugly.

[Shady Durham]

For every construction company that gets rich in Durham, a little neighborhood idea dies.

[hungry]

What about handing the YMCA building over to the Durham central market, seems like a perfect spot and we need a grocery store downtown.

[Todd]

So how much would it have cost to waterproof the footprint of the second tower to begin with, and who decided that wasn't needed?

Someone's bad decision - combined with Durham's typical pattern of putting off all things related to maintenance - just cost Durham $8 million. Will anyone be held accountable?

http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-1101949.cfm