Demolition of Courthouse Square set to begin Monday
Lane closures planned on West Beau St. in Washington
Demolition is set to begin Monday on the Courthouse Square parking garage before crews begin tearing down the building itself a few weeks later.
Crews were expected to begin staging their demolition equipment late Thursday or early this morning and then begin assembling the machinery, which will necessitate lane restrictions on West Beau Street between Main and Franklin streets to give workers room to operate.
The initial demolition work on the parking garage on the northeast side of the property near the courthouse’s Family Court Center is expected to begin mid-morning Monday, but completion of the work is weather permitting with a possible snowstorm expected early next week. The partial closure of that block of West Beau Street will go into effect this morning and continue until Tuesday, with “mid-block stop signs” allowing for alternating traffic to pass through, along with parking restrictions in place during that time, Washington police announced.
The razing of the Courthouse Square, which previously housed county government offices and several judicial row offices before those departments were moved over to the neighboring Crossroads Center building, will clear the way for the county’s new public safety building at the site.
“This is going to happen in a series,” county Buildings and Grounds Director Justin Welsh said about the demolition project. “Like everything else in this world, it will remain fluid.”
The temporary restrictions on West Beau will allow room for an excavator and other machinery to work on the corner of the parking garage before a self-contained area is then available for crews to demolish other parts of the property. Eventually, crews will begin work demolishing the six-story building.
Tommy Johnson, who is the project manager and onsite superintendent for Adamo Demolition that has been hired to perform the work, said the demolition of the parking garage could take about a month with the entire demo lasting until the end of May.
“The location of this and logistics with the 911 center (near Courthouse Square), sometimes you have to back off and take another look,” Johnson said. “We’re speculating it will be approximately 10 to 12 weeks.”
Unlike the demolition of Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh a quarter-century ago, there won’t be a spectacular implosion with timed explosives. Welsh said the demolition crews will be using specialized excavators with “munchers” to eat away at the concrete and steel structure while slowly tearing the building down.
“No dynamite, no wrecking ball,” Welsh said. “This is a specialized demo where the equipment will chew off or munch (at the structure), so to speak.”
Crews have been inside Courthouse Square since the summer removing interior materials ahead of the larger demolition. Commission Chairman Nick Sherman shared a video on the county’s official Facebook page Wednesday showing him giving a tour of what the inside of the garage and building look like now, which mostly showed hollowed-out structures.
“It was time for this to come down,” Sherman said in the video. “All the handwork demolition has already taken place, and we’re going to be seeing the excavators come in and heavy equipment (start work) beginning of March … to pull this building down to make way for our new public safety building.”
He said drainage and water problems necessitated the closure of the building and relocation of the county offices to the neighboring Crossroads Center building, which the county purchased in December 2020.
“This was not a conducive work environment for really a lot of the employees,” Sherman said, adding that the new county office building and plans to build a public safety center are important upgrades for the county. “This is an example of Washington County doing a better job and helping people.”
Last March, the commissioners unanimously approved a $1.555 million bid from Adamo Demolition Co. of Detroit to bring down the Courthouse Square building and parking garage. Another $1.44 million contract was approved in August to perform wall-shoring work ahead of the demolition.
Earlier this month, the commissioners voted to authorize the advertising of bids for construction of the new public safety building that will be constructed on the site of the former Courthouse Square property once it’s demolished.
The three-story public safety building will house the 911 dispatch center, sheriff’s office, booking center and have other various office space for county government, along with some areas for civic institutions to gather for meetings. The estimated cost of the public safety building will not be known until construction bids are received by the county in the spring.