Garage With Higher Seismic Standards OKd : Contracts: Firm says it will absorb the increased cost for construction of County-USC structure. The company is the same one that built the Cal State Northridge parking lot that collapsed in the quake.

In one of the first projects of its kind since the Northridge earthquake, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday awarded the first phase of a $19-million contract for a high-rise parking garage that officials say will be strengthened from lessons learned in the temblor.

The winning bidder, A. T. Curd Constructors, is the firm that built the Cal State Northridge parking facility that crumbled during the Jan. 17 quake. But company and county officials say the new project will be significantly different from the university facility.

“We can’t in good conscience build them like we used to, knowing what we have learned in the Northridge earthquake,” said company President Andrew Curd.

The company, which will oversee construction of a seven-level, 3,000-car capacity garage at County-USC Medical Center, was the lowest of four bidders on the project.

Bill Stewart, director of the county’s Internal Services Department, which oversees awarding of construction contracts, said all four bidders had been involved to some degree in projects that suffered damage in the Northridge temblor, although some firms disputed that assertion.

Curd said that after the Northridge quake, his engineers have redesigned the county project to improve the flexibility of columns and strengthen walls, two lessons learned from the collapse of the Cal State Northridge garage.

“These are significant differences from any (garage) we’ve done in the past,” Curd said.

At the Cal State Northridge garage, square supporting columns gave way because they were too brittle to hold up under the pounding and swaying brought on by the earthquake, engineers found.

Curd said the columns to be used at the County-USC garage will be of an octagonal shape and with significantly greater steel reinforcement. Curd said engineers estimate that the new design will enable the structure to withstand four to five times more movement than the old design. The new garage will also have reinforcing shear walls to give the structure greater strength, Curd said.

Although the changes are not required under the building code, Curd said they are being integrated into the project at his company’s expense, which he estimated to be several hundred thousand dollars.

Stewart said that to ensure that the garage will have the latest improvements and design innovations, the plans will be submitted to two independent peer review committees. The design reviews will also be coordinated with the state’s safety design experts.

“This will be the best studied parking structure in the history of the western United States,” Stewart said.

Last week, officials for the state university system adopted changes in construction policies that require the same design improvements being included in the County-USC project.