3 companies involved at Oakland site where woman was killed faced prior OSHA violations

Three companies involved at the Oakland construction site where a pedestrian was killed by a steel cylinder that broke loose Friday have faced prior fines from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Pittsburgh-based Gilbane Building Co. and Massaro Construction Group are the lead contractors on the construction project for Victory Heights, a $240 million sports performance center the University of Pittsburgh is building on its Oakland campus. Cheswick-based Costa Construction is also working at the site.

On Friday, Aleia Lopez, 51, of Pittsburgh’s North Side was fatally struck by a steel cylinder — which public safety officials estimated weighed thousands of pounds — while walking with co-workers from nearby UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital. She was pronounced dead at the scene at 10:45 a.m. after suffering a head injury.

Those three companies involved in construction at the site have had prior safety problems, according to OSHA records.

Costa Contracting last year was fined $8,000 because of concerns at a construction site in Imperial, where “employees were not protected from excavated or other materials or equipment that could pose a hazard by falling or rolling into excavations,” according to information provided on OSHA’s website.

In 2019, the company was fined $13,500 when workers at a Saw Mill Run Boulevard job site in Pittsburgh were working in an “unprotected excavation that was approximately 9 feet deep,” according to OSHA. Similar safety concerns prompted a $4,200 fine from the federal agency the year prior.

OSHA in 2021 fined Gilbane $14,200 after a worker in Philadelphia was killed when an excavation wall collapsed.

Gilbane and another company working at the site “did not provide the proper protection for the workers, resulting in a senseless loss of life,” OSHA Area Director in Philadelphia Theresa Downs said in a statement at the time.

Massaro Construction Group in 2006 faced a $63,000 fine after a worker was decapitated by an elevator while working at a Downtown Pittsburgh building. The worker was employed by a subcontractor working with Massaro Construction Group.

None of the companies responded to requests for additional comment Saturday. A joint statement Friday offered sympathy to the victim’s family and pledged to work with authorities to investigate the “tragic incident.”