First phase of Maple Avenue parking garage work nearly complete in Greensburg

The first phase of repair work on the Maple Avenue parking garage in Greensburg is nearing completion.

Greensburg Public Works Director Tom Bell told city council this week that the work should be complete in the next two weeks.

The two-level Dr. Robert W. Queale garage on Maple Avenue between Otterman and Pittsburgh streets, has been partially closed since late July, when crumbling concrete fell from a cavity in the lower-level ceiling.

In addition to the cavity, repairs will fix seams in the ceiling where signs of spalling are beginning. Spalling occurs when a concrete surface peels, breaks or chips away.

“There were four or five main beams going across,” Bell told council members. “They’re thicker and stronger, and right now they’re focusing on the beam holding up the garage basin.”

Carl Walker Construction, a firm which specializes in garage projects, is performing the repairs. It is the same company working on the $7 million reconstruction of the underground parking garage a block away at the Westmoreland County courthouse.

More than a dozen spaces at the Queale parking garage have been temporarily closed. Drivers leasing the affected spaces have been relocated to nearby on-street parking during the course of the repairs, which are estimated to cost about $155,000.

Street work

Bell also said that public works crews and outside contractors are wrapping up the majority of paving in the city this year.

“Even though we weren’t the ones who did a lot of it, we got a lot of streets paved this year,” Bell said. “And all of the streets we did through the county were done very well.”

Bell and council will be working in the next couple weeks to determine how to spend about $300,000 in anticipated Community Development Block Grant funding, federal funds doled out annually for street work. Applications for the 2023 CDBG program are due later this month.