Council Votes For Teardown Of Downtown Deck
Friday, July 15th, 2022
The downtown parking deck on Hamilton Street will be torn down after part of the structure was found to be deteriorating in a routine inspection last month. The Dalton Mayor and Council voted to tear the structure down at a meeting of the city's Finance Committee on Thursday afternoon. After the deck is demolished and removed, the bottom portion of the parking will be open to the public as the city explores plans to build a new parking structure in its place.
The parking deck located at the intersection of Hamilton Street and Crawford Street next to Burr Park is regularly inspected by Public Works Department crews and during normal maintenance in June, a beam was discovered that appeared to be deteriorating. The deck was closed on June 10th out of an abundance of caution. After consulting with structural engineers, it was determined that either a repair of the structure or demolition of the structure would be needed.
"The repair scenario based on pricing is pretty substantial, in the $600,000-800,000 range," said Chad Townsend, Dalton's Public Works director. "These are ballpark quotes, because nobody could give us an official repair price, but I’d say that the repairs would be three quarters of a million dollars on what’s basically a million dollar parking deck essentially so it doesn’t make sense to put that kind of money into a repair."
With Thursday's vote to remove the structure, the Public Works Department is working to get plans in place with a contractor to begin demolition work on the deck. Site preparation work will begin soon, with removal of the structure expected to begin in early August. The process to demolish and remove the deck will likely take most of the month.
"We want to get it on the ground as soon as possible just to eliminate any safety issues as well as getting the bottom portion of the parking back open for the businesses downtown," said Townsend. "We’re still receiving reconstruction estimates for what a new deck might cost, but we’re also exploring the possibilities of expanding on what was there depending on what the pricing looks like."
