Fremont Street may reopen Wednesday as workers install transit center support beams

Authorities have yet to say what led to cracks in two steel girders at city’s $2.2B transportation hub

SAN FRANCISCO >> Fremont Street in San Francisco will remain closed until Wednesday as crews continue shoring the Salesforce Transit Center after workers discovered cracks in two steel beams last month.

The new, $2.2 billion transit center closed Sept. 25, just 6 ½ weeks after it opened following nearly a decade of construction in downtown San Francisco.

Authorities closed the building after workers installing ceiling panels discovered a 2 ½-foot crack in a structural support beam.

The beam, which is on the third floor of the building and simultaneously supports the roof deck above it and the bus deck below it, straddles Fremont Street. Subsequent inspections revealed a second crack in an adjacent beam.

Workers first installed a series of jacks to take weight off the two beams, and they are now installing support beams to replace the jacks, authorities said last week.

Work on the street level of Fremont Street is complete, officials with the Transbay Joint Powers Authority said in a statement Wednesday. The authority is responsible for designing, constructing and maintaining the building.

The complex shoring system, which runs through all four levels of the building, including the two below-grade levels, is taking longer than expected to complete, with work continuing through the weekend and into early next week, authorities said.

“It is important that we have an extremely robust shoring system to ensure that all levels of the transit center are safe and secure,” Mark Zabaneh, the executive director of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, this requires us to keep the street closed until this work is complete. We will reopen Fremont Street as soon as safely possible and apologize for the ongoing impact to the public.”

The authority has yet to release information about what caused the two beams to crack. The beams used American-made steel and were fabricated by the highly-regarded Stockton-based company Herrick Corp., which worked on the Transamerica Pyramid, 181 Fremont Street and Salesforce Tower in San Francisco.

Dennis Turchon, a senior construction manager for the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, told reporters last week testing would begin once it was safe for workers to take samples of the cracked beams. An independent peer review panel will assess the results of that testing before a final fix is put in place.

While Fremont Street could open as early as Wednesday, there’s no estimation yet when the transit center will reopen. For now, bus riders are using the same temporary terminal that was in place during construction.