Walnut Street garage demo halted
The ongoing demolition of the Walnut Street Parking Garage in Bethlehem has been halted after part of the structure collapsed Friday.
The collapse caused a beam from the structure to fall onto the Payson House, a building across the street that houses condos and businesses.
Mike Simonson, Bethlehem’s chief building inspector, said that further work on the garage demolition will cease temporarily as construction workers remove debris and clean the site where the collapse occurred.
The cause could not immediately be determined, Simonson said, but the city’s engineering staff expects to produce a report next week detailing what led to the collapse.
No injuries were reported, and a city engineer determined that the Payson House is structurally safe, and that the other portions of the garage are not at immediate risk of collapse, Simonson said.
Melis Carroll, who lives in the condos in the area of Payson House that was impacted, said she was driving back to the area about 8:10 a.m. when she saw a beam from the garage fall onto the building.
Construction vehicles were taking down some of the floors when they collapsed. As they fell, three beams split off and fell toward the building.
The one beam hit the roof of the building, she said, causing a loud noise and shaking the building.
“A lot of people ran out,” she said of her neighbors.
Crews were able to remove the beam shortly after, but as they did, the beam scraped off more of the roof, Carroll said. The tenant of the property below where the beam was hit is aware of the damage.
The Walnut Street garage closed in early January, with demolition beginning soon after.
Bethlehem City Council voted earlier this month to replace the garage with a new, taller one that has 527 spaces. The new garage is expected to be constructed by the end of next year.
The original garage, built in the 1970s, had 770 parking spaces. Parking authority officials said it was “past its useful life,” because of structural issues.