DOWNTOWN DEMO

City crews at work demolishing crumbling old parking arcade

MIDDLETOWN — City crews are making quick work of demolishing the aging parking arcade downtown, an endeavor that has now reached the halfway point.

The Court Street structure has been closed to traffic on both levels since early March. Parking staff and officials have been adding additional spaces for vehicles along the Main Street corridor to compensate for the 180 lost when the lot was shut down. Already, 130 spots have been restored or replaced, according to Mayor Dan Drew.

Once the garage is gone, the lot will be replaced with a layer of gravel as a temporary parking measure.

The razing process began Tuesday as machine operators removed portions of the Court Street garage that had been reduced to rubble. By Thursday, Drew said on his Facebook page, areas at the center of the

arcade had begun to cave in. “These two major holes in the center of the structure were made with one tap of the backhoe seen in the photos,” Drew said in a description of several photographs he posted taken from the top of the Middlesex Mutual building.

“This is the area where the structure was weakest, and where you could stand on the lower level and peer through the top deck at blue sky. I’m glad we closed the structure when we did,” Drew added.

The 50-year-old building has been experiencing significant damage from crumbling concrete for years. Crews didn’t expect the arcade to be so compromised, the mayor added.

“The structure is so brittle that it’s crumbling as the heavy equipment digs into it. We were expecting major chunks to have to be ground down, but the structure is falling apart as it’s being demolished,” the mayor said, comparing the concrete to “flaky plaster.”

The lower level of the arcade was closed in December 2013 due to crumbling concrete and other hazards. The original rerouting plan had lower Court Street slated to become a one-way road. The city has reworked the onstreet parking configuration so traffic can flow in both directions, Drew said.

Police Chief William McKenna will be assigning more police vehicles for officers to take home, the mayor added, so there will be less personal cars parked filling up the police lot and Dingwall Drive.

For a list of parking areas open in the city, visit cityofmiddletown.com/ Parking.

Cassandra Day / Hearst Connecticut Media The parking arcade, shown here about one-quarter demolished after just a few days of work, is so brittle it falls apart like flaky plaster as demolition equipment digs into it. Below, a sign indicates the parking lot is closed.

Contributed photos Middletown's parking arcade demolition is now about halfway completed. A flat gravel lot will temporarily replace the structure on Court Street.

The lower level of the arcade was closed in December 2013 due to crumbling concrete and other hazards.