Grant, Forbes reopen around Frick Building amid repairs

Three weeks after a granite chunk broke off and fell from the Frick Building, Pittsburgh officials reopened adjacent Grant Street and Forbes Avenue on Friday as repairs take shape for the Downtown landmark.

The roughly 20-day road and sidewalk closure gave workers time to put up a temporary protective barrier, erect scaffolding and encapsulate the damaged portion of the 115-year-old building at 437 Grant St., said city spokesman Timothy McNulty.

“They’ve been removing everything that they could find” that might have been loose enough to fall onto the street, Mr. McNulty said. With the area confirmed to be secure, he said, crews have taken down the temporary barrier wall at street level.

A piece of granite estimated to weigh 1,500 pounds plummeted some 250 feet from the Frick Building’s cornice in late July, crashing into the intersection of Grant and Forbes. It happened overnight the weekend of July 29; no one was hurt.

Owned by New Jersey-based Rugby Realty, the historic property has remained open for business, accessible from Fifth Avenue. Maura Kennedy, the city director of permits, licenses and inspections, has said the building had no active code violations that would have contributed to the cornice failure.

Age and the long-term effects of weather and moisture likely led to the problem, city officials have said. The cause remains under investigation, Larry Walsh, Rugby’s chief operating officer in the

Pittsburgh area, said in a statement Friday night.

“A final opinion has not been rendered by the specialist we have hired. However, the preliminary analysis is that the failure was caused by water infiltration from the roof above the cornice,” Mr. Walsh said.

In an earlier interview, he said it goes “without saying that if we knew we had a problem with this cornice, we would have fixed it.”

Mr. Walsh told building tenants Friday that the Grant and Forbes entrances should reopen by Monday morning at the latest.

The company is “preparing to expand the scope of work to include the other three corners of the building to ensure that they are also safe and secure,” according to a Rugby dispatch to tenants.

The company said temporary “sidewalk scaffold” is being installed around those other parts of the building, allowing entrances and sidewalks to stay open while work continues.

For repairs to proceed, Mr. McNulty said the city will need to review and approve an engineering plan supplied by the company. Adjacent streets should remain open, said Guy Costa, the city’s chief operations officer.