Gymnasium Listed as Earthquake Risk : Safety: Cal State Dominguez Hills facility is ranked among the top 100 state buildings posing a hazard. University officials say building is safe.

A gymnasium at Cal State Dominguez Hills is listed among the top 100 state-owned buildings that pose potential hazards in the event of an earthquake, according to school officials and the state Seismic Safety Commission.

The gymnasium, which is designated as the school’s primary emergency shelter, is listed in a January, 1990, commission report that assigns a priority ranking to more than 1,000 state buildings for more detailed structural analysis, said Fred Turner, a structural engineer for the Seismic Safety Commission. The Dominguez Hills gymnasium is 80th on the list.

However, officials at Cal State Dominguez Hills say they are not concerned about possible hazards related to the gymnasium because the commission listing is not based on a comprehensive structural study.

“There hasn’t been a physical integrity study done that’s said ‘Yes, this is dangerous,’ ” said university spokesman Greg Klerkx. He said the gymnasium, constructed in 1977, was designed to meet building and earthquake-safety standards.

“As far as we’re concerned, it’s a safe building,” Klerkx said.

However, Tom Tobin, the commission’s executive director, said the building is made of non-ductile concrete, which cannot bend or stretch during an earthquake without breaking.

“It’s the kind of building that can have a significant failure in the event of an earthquake,” Tobin said. “I would say it definitely needs to be looked at further.”

The commission report is an update of a seismic hazards survey prepared in April, 1981, that took into account building size, age and type of construction, number of occupants, size and frequency of earthquakes in the area and the number of lives that could be saved by retrofitting the building. The information was then entered into a computer to come up with a ranking, Turner said. It did not include an on-site inspection.

Because the state does not have the money to physically examine every one of its 16,000 buildings, the survey is intended as a guideline for determining funding of engineering studies of individual state-owned buildings, state officials said.

The updated report, which lists more than 1,000 University of California, Cal State University and state office buildings, provides cost estimates for rehabilitating the structures, Tobin said.

Those buildings with the highest ranking are those that state officials believe pose the highest risk in an earthquake, Tobin said.

Upgrading the Dominguez Hills gymnasium to meet current seismic safety standards would cost $2.3 million, according to state estimates.

Dominguez Hills uses the gymnasium for its physical education classes and intercollegiate athletic events. It is also the school’s primary disaster shelter, Klerkx said. However, if an earthquake occurs, the gymnasium would be evacuated along with other school buildings as part of the university’s earthquake preparedness plan, he said.

The university defends the building’s designation as an emergency shelter based on its past performance during earthquakes, Klerkx said.

“We’ve never had any incidents with this building” even during the Whittier earthquake, Klerkx said, referring to the 5.9 temblor of October, 1987. “As far as we’re concerned, we’re comfortable with the fact that it’s an emergency shelter.”

Tobin said the gymnasium’s listing at 80th is not to be taken lightly because three buildings at Cal State L.A.--Salazar Hall, Martin Luther King Hall and John F. Kennedy Library--ranked lower in the 1981 survey but suffered structural damage in the Whittier quake.

A 23-year-old microbiology student was killed in that quake when she was struck by a concrete slab that fell from a parking structure at Cal State L.A. The parking structure was one of several campus buildings that were not listed in the survey because the university did not provide any information about the structures to the commission.

Students at Cal State Dominguez Hills have not expressed much concern about safety questions related to the gymnasium since the issue was first publicized by the campus newspaper, Dominguez News, in September, said Anna Harmon, Associated Students president. She said she did not have enough information about the issue to take a position.

Most faculty members at the school are not aware of the situation, said Jose Cuervo, president of the Dominguez Hills chapter of the California Faculty Assn. Cuervo said he became aware of the commission ranking only this week when a reporter inquired about it.

Cal State University officials are counting on voter approval of Proposition 143 on the November ballot to provide funding for the Cal State system to increase seismic safety at all its facilities, said Colleen Bentley-Adler, a spokeswoman for the chancellor’s office. The $450-million bond measure would provide funding for capital outlays for the Cal State system, the UC and community college systems.

The Cal State system would spend $1 million of the bond money to conduct its own initial seismic safety studies, which would include a physical integrity study of the Dominguez Hills gymnasium, Bentley-Adler said. The Cal State system used the commission’s survey and report to help devise an overall plan, submitted to the governor in August, to increase seismic safety at its 20 campuses, she said.

The retrofit costs of Cal State buildings in the top third of the commission ranking are estimated at more than $560 million, according to the January report. There are 45 Cal State buildings listed among the top 100 structures.

Pat Nichelson, president of the California Faculty Assn., the bargaining unit for Cal State faculty, said there is “grave concern about the condition of the CSU’s infrastructure” among faculty members.

“Seismic safety is something we believe was not given enough regard in the expansion of the system,” Nichelson said.

Two buildings at UCLA--Powell Library and Moore Hall--are among the top 10 structures listed in the commission report. Powell Library ranks first on the list, and Moore Hall is ranked third. UCLA officials say the buildings are among 24 older state-funded structures included in the school’s seismic-upgrade plan.