Sep 12, 2018 5 min read

Transitional Paths to Independent Living was forced to stop renovations on its new facility on West Maiden Street in Washington when the city’s building inspectors filed a stop-work order against it because of mold.

Jamie Harshman, owner of the city’s third-party building inspectors, The Harshman Civil Engineering Group, said they received a report early last week about the condition of the mold in the former YWCA building.

The report came from Accredited Environmental Technologies Inc. of Pittsburgh, which TRPIL has used in the past to develop mold remediation plans. AET’s report, dated June 12, states the building has mold throughout on its walls and surfaces.

“Observations indicate mold growth has occurred/is occurring due to excess interior moisture and limited ventilation,” the report’s conclusion states. “Remediation is required prior to continuing with renovation activities to promote healthy air quality conditions.”

The report states 50,000 square feet of plaster-covered walls were affected by the growth of black mold. It also states that groundwater has “infiltrated” the sub-basement, which has concrete walls that are not waterproof.

Harshman said TRPIL, a nonprofit advocacy organization for people with disabilities, should have provided the city with the report and a remediation plan.

“From the time period of June 12 until now, the contractors may have been working in unsafe conditions,” he said. “The purpose of the stop-work order was safety. Conditions need to be safe before the construction can continue.”

Kathleen Kleinmann, chief executive officer of TRPIL, attended the city council meeting Monday to ask why the stop-work order was issued, when it’s been “common knowledge” the building has had issues with mold and asbestos.

“It was never deemed to be dangerous until Tuesday,” Kleinmann said at the meeting. “We’ve had this mold issue since the project started, so why now?”

Kleinmann said when TRPIL received the June 12 report, it ceased construction within that week.

“These materials for drywall had just been offloaded. That was the next step, and now we can’t perform that step because you can’t put drywall over mold.”

Though most of the work has already come to a halt, Kleinmann said the stop-work order made it impossible for the organization to bring in experts to come up with “proposals for remedies.”

“The order appears to say that we can’t pass the threshold or take anybody in,” she said.

Other work that was being done since June 12 had to do with the water in the sub-basement, Kleinmann said. She said TRPIL had planned to bring in “a bidder to put pumps down there,” since the water has risen due to the extensive rain this past week.

“We need sump pumps down there to keep it empty,” she said. “We’ve come to that conclusion and we’re preparing the foundation and the walls for the pumps. We’re very concerned that if we can’t get the pumps in by Friday, we won’t be able to schedule that again until December.”

Councilman Joe Manning, other city officials, the Harman Group and TRPIL officials met Wednesday morning to reach a solution on the stop-work order. Manning said TRPIL provided the Harshman Group with a remediation plan to treat the mold, and will now be allowed to bring in professionals to complete that plan, as well as install the sump pumps, which are part of the remediation.

Manning said workers involved in the remediation work will need to take safety precautions while inside the building. He said the rest of the construction can start again “as soon as the mold is remediated and they can present a final report to the building inspectors.”

“In the meantime, they are taking steps to do any exterior work on the building,” Manning said.

Kleinmann said Tuesday TRPIL is trying to give the contractors a timeline for when they can get back to work, since the slowdown could result in cost overruns on those contracts. She said treatment of the mold will probably cost TRPIL about $250,000, which will likely cut into budgeting for community programming.

It’s not the first time the building’s mold has resulted in extra time and expense. Kleinmann said that two years ago, AET issued a report with similar conclusions, citing the mold as a major problem that needed to be addressed. They delivered a remediation plan for TRPIL that offered a 95 percent chance of resolving the problem.

“That was the best confidence level they could give us, and we shared their optimism for the remediation plan,” she said.

But in May, they found more mold.

“We brought them back as quickly as they could schedule us,” Kleinmann said. “We’re moving through this process as quickly as we can.”

In more positive news for TRPIL, the organization Tuesday was awarded a $1.5 million state grant for phase two of the project. The Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant money will go toward a second elevator, widened doorways, installation of carpeting and flooring specialized for wheelchairs, furniture and equipment.

“We’re still working on phase one, but now we have something to hang our hats on for phase two,” Kleinmann said. “It’s a really good message in a dark time.”