by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
By early 2005, representatives from the Police and Fire Pension Fund say substantial upgrades to their downtown parking garage should be complete.
Bordering Main and Monroe streets, the Pension Fund owns and operates the garage, which Fund administrator John Keane said “desperately needs” internal maintenance and facade repairs.
“We’re going to go in and replace things like the stairwell doors, restripe it and do some caulking,” he said. “We’ll also redo the outside so that it better complements the other buildings in the area like the library and its parking garage.”
Tentatively budgeted at $500,000, Keane said the project will be covered within the Fund’s operating budget.
“The garage was built in 1986 and since then there has been very little serious work done to it,” he said. “This is a real estate investment for the Pension Fund and we have a responsibility to take care of it.
“A lot has happened over the years and it just looks tired right now.”
Earlier this year, Keane said that there was an additional push to make structural improvements to the garage after a portion of the old Roosevelt Hotel, also located on Monroe Street, was demolished as part of Vestcor’s Carlington Lofts project.
He said for nearly a year the west wall of the Fund’s garage has been left exposed to wind and precipitation.
“We’re started to see a lot more water damage and things of that nature because of that,” he said. “There has been nothing to prevent water from seeping in and we wanted to get it fixed before this gets to be a more serious problem.”
Keane said the Fund has already issued a Request for Proposals for the work and the deadline for bids is less than two weeks away.
“Aug. 25,” he said. “We want to move quickly on this so we plan to review those bids, choose one and get underway almost immediately.”
Once on site, Keane said workers would “work around” construction crews at the Main Library and the Carlington.
“We have every intention to be as accommodating as we can and will coordinate with the City in every way possible,” he said. “We understand they have a job to do, too.”