Repair to roof on City Hall in Gary gets green thumb touch
Project designed to combat leaks, divert stormwater
By summer, Gary will have a new garden that very few people will ever see.
Plagued by a series of leaks in the past three years, the roof of City Hall has turned green. About 3,000 square feet are filled with self-contained sedum plants, a cactus variety that are hardy and require little watering.
While the green roof technology is new to Gary, Chicago City Hall installed its rooftop garden in 2000 to combat the urban heat island effect and improve air quality. Chicago mandates green roofs on new buildings, a move that came following a deadly 1995 heat wave that saw more than 700 heat-related deaths.
Gary’s $1.2 million project is designed to capture up to 1 1⁄2 inches of rainfall, keeping it out of the city’s combined sewer and stormwater system, said Dan Vicari, who headed the project as executive director of the Gary Sanitary District under former Mayor Karen FreemanWilson.
Vicari said workers discovered eight layers of roofing when they began the project last year. He said the old roof had drains that went directly into the combined sewer system.
When the leaky roof sent water into the city council chambers forcing the relocation of meetings, city officials settled on a green roof solution. Once the old roof layers were removed, workers installed a rubber membrane covered with trays of sedum.
The original concrete parapet wall lining the perimeter of the third story had to be removed to install the rubber membrane.
Consultants at RestoreWorks, in Griffith, a masonry restoration company, determined the parapet couldn’t be salvaged because it had been exposed to the elements too long.
Because of the 1927 building’s historic value, city officials decided to refabricate the ornamental parapet. Workers built molds from the remaining pieces and recreated the correct aggregate mix.
Famed Chicago architect George W. Maher drafted the original plan for Gary’s four-story City Hall and his son, Phillip B. Maher completed the design after his father’s suicide.
Indiana Landmarks describes the design as a Doric colonnade and dome in the neoclassical style of the era. According to Indiana Landmarks, it was part of Gary’s 1924 Gateway Improvement Plan, which included a grand entrance to the city from Union Station. Across Broadway from City Hall is the Lake County Superior Court, built in a similar neoclassical design, topped by a gold dome.