More than seven months after a chunk fell off Milwaukee's newly
renovated City Hall, the investigation into what went wrong is still
ongoing - lasting months longer and costing more than four times as much
as originally estimated, city officials say.
The probe has
already cost $425,000 and the price is still rising, said Ron
Schoeneck, architectural manager for the $76 million renovation that
wrapped up in December 2008. Testing and inspections first projected to
take several months are now unlikely to be completed before the end of
this year, and possibly not until spring, according to Schoeneck and his
boss, city Facilities Director Venu Gupta.
Meanwhile,
scaffolding continues to ring the iconic building. That will stay in
place to protect pedestrians until city officials know what happened and
can be sure no other pieces will fall off their 115-year-old
headquarters, Schoeneck said.
None of this is what city leaders had in mind when they celebrated the end of the three-year restoration project.
It was the biggest public works job in city history, and it came in on
schedule and under budget. It later won multiple awards, including one
from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The scaffolding had been down for more than two years when, on the evening of Feb. 17, a piece of masonry fell off
the east side of the building. As it struck the ground, the terra cotta
broke into three roughly 5-pound fragments, slightly damaging a car
parked on N. Market St. - JSOnline
When a piece of concrete fell off of a parking garage and killed a person, many Dems cried out that it was due to the lack of spending by then County Exec Scott Walker. But, a piece falls off of City Hall and very easily could have killed someone and there is no outcry? No, it is now about how much it is costing to find out what went wrong.
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