Concrete base in place at Westmoreland courthouse parking, plaza project

Trucks continuously pulled in front of the Westmoreland County Courthouse in Greensburg early Saturday and through the morning to feed thousands of cubic yards concrete that formed the base for a new courtyard plaza.

Some 50 laborers were directing the 4-inch hose that spewed the concrete pumped from two giant pumpers parked on Main Street, while others smoothed the poured concrete and tested the mix.

The work was the latest step in a $7 million project to replace the courthouse’s two-story underground garage and the support level for the plaza. Main and Otterman streets near the project were closed to traffic.

The 20 Stone & Co. mixing trucks shuttling from the company’s plants along Roseytown Road in Hempfield and near the Crossroads Plaza in East Huntingdon poured their contents into chutes on the pumpers.

The product was sent into 5-inch pipes that pushed the concrete at a rate of 160 cubic yards an hour, said Adam Stone, chief innovations operator for Stone & Co. Every load of concrete is tested to ensure it contains the correct mixture of additives as determined by the engineers on the project, Stone said.

About 35 Stone & Co. employees were working on the project — drivers and those operating the concrete batch plants, Stone said. They started their day about 3:30 a.m.

“We take pride in being able to service the big jobs,” Stone said.

The concrete pumpers — that weigh around 100,000 pounds —- carried hoses that stretched 171 feet and 118 feet respectively, said Jason Femc, sales manager for L&E Concrete Pumping Inc. of Ross. The pumper with the longer hose could have dumped concrete atop the courthouse dome, Fenc noted.

The heavy rain overnight delayed the start of the concrete pour from 2 a.m. to about 5 a.m., Stone said. Any water that had accumulated on the metal plates below the reinforcing bars simply was displaced by the concrete.

In about three days, crews will tighten tension cables in the concrete. Those were placed along the top surface of surface of the garage’s ceiling.

The parking garage was closed in March 2022 because engineers had determined that the structure built in the 1980s was in danger of collapse. It was envisioned as a six-month project, but work was delayed because water infiltrated the site, bedrock was found that required more designing and larger columns were necessary to support the parking garage.

The courthouse plaza is expected to reopen in June, after the garage’s ceiling is waterproofed this month and a surface layer of concrete is added in early May.

The renovated plaza will have benches, small trees in planters, shade sails and large lettering that spells “Westmoreland” along North Main Street and a reproduction of the county flag engraved into the concrete.