EVACUATION
Snapped cable, overloaded columns push closure of Courthouse Square
By Michael Rose • Statesman Journal • July 22, 2010 

On Friday morning at about 9 a.m., employees in the Courthouse Square building
 in downtown Salem heard a loud noise coming from the second floor. 
They said it sounded like an explosion or a garbage truck dropping a trash bin. Some county employees also felt a vibration in the floor.

For people working in a building that already had cracks in some walls and 
bent window frames, the noise was disturbing.

An engineer determined that the noise likely was caused by a steel reinforcing
 
cable in a slab rupturing, but that problem alone didn't make the building 

unsafe. Monitoring equipment was placed in the building during the weekend. No other alarming sounds were detected.

On Monday, engineers did additional tests and found something more troubling — 
33 to 35 columns in the building were carrying a greater load than is allowed 
by the building code, said Dave Henderson, the county's business services 
director. The columns are supporting more than one and one-third times their 
specified capacity. They are located throughout the second to fifth floors.

As a result, all workers in the building are being moved out.

"Within 90 days, all county, transit and retail operations will be out of the building," Henderson said.

Occupants of the building were informed of the relocation Wednesday.

County officials already have started to look for leased office space. Transit 
district officials hope to consolidate most operations at a maintenance and 
operations facility in northeast Salem, although they plan to keep a downtown customer service office.

It is unknown how long the county and transit district will be in temporary quarters.

The Courthouse Square building, at 555 Court St. NE, does not appear to be 
imminent danger of collapse, Henderson said. If further testing finds safety 
concerns, the 160,000-square-foot building will be immediately evacuated, he said.

The columns are just the latest defects found at Marion County Courthouse 
Square. A $500,000 engineering study is under way to determine the source of 
structural problems at Courthouse Square and the adjoining transit mall, which
 is now circled by a chain-link fence and is off-limits.

Engineers are continuing their analysis and the cause of the problems isn't 
known yet, but Henderson said "it appears the design was faulty."

Because of the space required, the county operations at Courthouse Square will
 likely be spread over multiple locations. The county will likely use money 
from its "rainy day" fund, which is set aside for emergencies, to cover the cost of leasing office space.

The county doesn't yet have an estimate of how much it will cost to lease space.

Allan Pollock, the general manager of the Salem Area Transit District, better
 known as Cherriots, said the district is talking about moving downtown 
employees to its maintenance facility at 3140 Del Webb Ave. NE. That could be 
cramped quarters, he said, and it might be necessary to put some offices in trailers.

The transit district is a part owner in the Courthouse Square building and it 
controls the space on the first floor that is leased to The Beanery and Trinh's Cuisine.

For the transit district, the financial implications of forcing the two businesses to move aren't known yet.

"We are still kind of reacting at this point," Pollock said.

Minh Trinh, 45, owner of Trinh's Cuisine on the street level of the building,
 said, "It was such short notice. We might find somewhere else to go. We don't know yet"

"We're shocked," said his brother Mung. "We just got to be patient."

Gabe Stevenson 24, who works in The Beanery, said he wasn't sure what this 
would mean for the business.

"I was trying to move to Eugene, so this motivates me," Stevenson said.

The Courthouse Square building is structurally separated from the bus mall, but the bus mall has issues, too.

Cherriots unexpectedly was pushed out of the bus mall first because of 
engineering tests, and later because the tests revealed serious problems in 
the slab that supports the bus mall. A temporary bus mall has been set up on Cottage Street west of Willson Park.

The parking garage beneath the bus mall was also placed off-limits.

Officials have discussed making temporary repairs to the bus mall and parking
 garage. The temporary fix would suffice until engineers get a better 
understanding of what's causing the problems and permanent repairs could be made.

That approach may be reconsidered in light of the cost of making temporary 
repairs, Henderson said. At this point, the cost looks "prohibitively high," he said.

mrose@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6657