Cal U parking garage still closed after concrete falls
Problem adds to woes for debt-ridden facility
Days before fall classes began, a chunk of concrete longer than a car fell onto the first floor of a garage at California University of Pennsylvania, prompting the fivestory structure’s immediate closure and removal of all cars.
A month later, the $12 million Vulcan garage remains shut. It was built behind the campus library six years ago with publicly financed debt that Cal U is supposed to cover with income from parking fees.
Cal U isn’t saying what caused the concrete to give way on Aug. 26, or if it has learned anything since about the garage’s overall stability, except to say that the Michael Baker International engineering firm evaluated the garage and suggested “we take a deeper dive into the issue,” Cal U spokeswoman Christine Kindl said Monday.
Cal U retained a second firm, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates of Pittsburgh, to “conduct forensic testing of the physical and structural components of the garage,” she said. “At this point, we have no timeline for reopening the garage.”
The 650-space structure near Cal U’s main entrance was financed with bonds backed by the State System of Higher Education.
It was among a $1 billion-plus in building projects and borrowing that helped State System universities, Cal U among them, better compete a decade ago in a burgeoning student market — a market that helped push enrollment at the 14 state-owned universities to a record 120,000 students by 2010.
But some projects, including Cal U’s parking improvements, were criticized for their cost as enrollments began to slide and campus budgetary pressures led to program cuts and faculty and staff reductions.
Those stresses across the State System have not lessened, and they could worsen this fall if an expected sixth straight enrollment decline materializes and faculty makes good on a threat to strike Oct. 19. Since 2010, the system has lost 13,000 students.
At Cal U, the $12 million garage and $8 million in other parking improvements were developed during the administration of thenCal U president Angelo Armenti Jr. It was an auxiliary project, meaning operating costs and debt service were to come from parking income, State System officials
said.
But the operation early on apparently ran in the red. A report by State System auditors in 2013 found Cal U’s parking enterprise exhibited a net deficit in 2010-2011 of $740,000.
The university reported in 2013 that debt payments on the garage, surface lots and related improvements cost Cal U $1,551,357 a year. Once $510,100 in costs to operate the parking facilities were factored in, expenses in 2011 outpaced income by $743,041, even after $1,318,416 in revenue was collected as Cal U transitioned to a pay parking system.
That same year, things grew more tenuous as Cal U prepared to reimburse at least $242,000 in parking fees after the state Supreme Court let stand a ruling that Cal U had improperly levied them on hundreds of faculty.
The ruling “will make it challenging” for Cal U to make those debt service payments, Ms. Kindl said that year. She said it would use auxiliary reserves.
Cal U declined to describe in any way the concrete that fell, but photos released by the State System in response to a Right-to-Know request from the Pittsburgh PostGazette show a hole and debris field substantially longer than a nearby parked car.
The state-inspected garage received a certificate of occupancy in August 2010. The general contractor was Manheim Corporation, said Sara Goulet, a state Department of Labor and Industry spokeswoman. A call to the Pittsburgh firm was not returned Monday.
Officials, including Cal U president Geraldine Jones and vice president for administration and finance Robert Thorn, did not respond to questions this month about the garage. Ms. Kindl said it typically generates $300,000 a year in permit and hourly parking fees.
“Until we know how long the garage will be offline, we can’t estimate the financial impact of the closure,” she said.