Cal U settles lawsuit; contractor to pay for parking garage deficiencies

A contractor will pay $2.4 million to repair a five-level parking garage at California University of Pennsylvania that has been closed for four years since a chunk of concrete broke off and crashed to the ground.

Repairs will begin soon on the $13 million Vulcan Parking Garage, built in 2010, Cal U officials said. The facility has been closed since the incident in August 2016 and a subsequent inspection revealed other safety issues.

In 2018, the state-owned university in Washington County sued the contractor, Manheim Corp., and its bond-holder, Travelers Casualty and Surety Co. of America, in state court.

Robert Thorn, Cal U’s vice president for administration and finance, told university trustees last week that officials reached a settlement in the suit. He said repairs are scheduled to begin this semester while the campus is largely shuttered due to the coronavirus pandemic. Work could be complete in time for the spring semester, he said.

“Safety has always been our No. 1 concern. We have said from the start that we will not reopen the garage until we are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the structure is safe for our students, employees and guests,” Thorn said.

He said Cal U also was awarded an estimated $1.35 million in the settlement as reimbursement for legal fees, engineering costs and lost parking revenue, which the university pegged at about $275,000 per year.

Thorn said officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry; the engineering firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates; and Construction Engineering Consultants Inc., an independent testing agency; are reviewing a mock up of the repair plan with Howard Shockey and Sons Inc. the contractor selected for the repair project.

Repairs are scheduled to begin when those reviews are complete.