Nick Coleman: Look out! MnDOT’s building is falling down

09/25/2007

By Nick Coleman,
Star Tribune
September 22, 2007


Since the Interstate 35W bridge tragedy on Aug. 1, Minnesotans have debated what's wrong with the state Department of Transportation. Now we know.

It is falling down.

Literally.

The department headquarters on John Ireland Boulevard, near the State Capitol in St. Paul, is in danger of a "catastrophic failure" and poses a "life-safety issue."

I am not exaggerating. The terms "catastrophic" and "life-safety" come from an urgent $13.7 million repair request prepared by the Department of Administration, which is responding to threats from building inspectors to close the transportation building if measures aren't taken to prevent workers and visitors from being injured by falling pieces of the building's exterior.

The budget request, prepared shortly before the bridge collapsed, is $1 million higher than a $12.7 million appropriation to fix the building that was in a bonding bill approved by the Legislature last spring. That bill, however, was vetoed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Big surprise, huh?

Officials have been worrying about the MnDOT building and trying, without success, to get the money to fix it since 2002. The problem is getting worse, says Nicky Giancola, assistant commissioner of the Department of Administration. She wrote the building repair request, which predicts that granite panels -- each weighing 1,200 pounds -- will begin to fall off in "the near future."

Welcome to Minnesota. Don't Forget To Duck.

The MnDOT building opened in 1958 during the state's celebration of its centennial. At the rate things are falling down, it may not still be standing for next year's sesquicentennial.

To enter the building, a visitor must navigate a protected tunnel made up of barriers, scaffolding, chain-link fence, netting and even yellow police tape, all of which funnels you into the building under these protective cribs to keep you from being squashed.

Inside, it is sound, and $44 million in interior renovations were made during the 1990s. But on the exterior, the steel structure that holds the granite in place is rusting, and water and ice damage is causing the slabs to crack and spall (meaning small chunks are breaking off).

"The state needs to do this work now," Giancola's budget request states, "before a catastrophic failure and a panel or a piece of a panel falls."

The situation is so severe that the state's insurance no longer covers falling panels.

"It's not going to get any better, and it's not going to get any cheaper," Giancola says. "But it needs to be done."

We should carve those sentences in crumbling granite.

Two weeks after Pawlenty's veto, the Department of Labor and Industry and city of St. Paul ordered repairs "to ensure" that MnDOT headquarters "can continue to be occupied."

But the state, now looking for projects to postpone in order to get the money it needs to begin reconstruction of the 35W bridge, doesn't have the funds to keep its transportation headquarters in repair. What we have is a Transportation Department the public needs to be protected from.

Safety measures have been installed above the entrances and the atrium of the building (the roof protection cost $360,000).

Crashing onto the sidewalk

The measures include "protective cribbing" made from scaffolding reinforced with steel beams and cushioned with foot-thick foam boards installed between plywood panels. It's a solution that engineers hope will keep the 1,200-pound slabs from crashing onto the sidewalk or into the lobby next to a monument to the MnDOT workers who have died in the line of duty. To date, no MnDOT workers have been killed in the lobby.

"Defer maintenance long enough, and this is what happens," says St. Paul's building official, Tom Riddering. "They haven't spent the money to fix this problem. Now, they're spending money to try to keep the building from falling on somebody."

Makes you proud.

We live in a hard-hat zone.

You know, I've been too tough on Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau, Pawlenty's unqualified transportation commissioner. I have new respect for her now. She risks her life every day she goes to the office.