Collapsed Parking Structure Violated Code, Report Says

The collapsed parking garage at Cal State Northridge, a symbol of the destructive power of the Northridge earthquake, suffered from a “conspicuously flawed” design that failed to meet state building codes, concluded a report released by the university Monday.

The inch-thick report by Dames and Moore Inc., an engineering firm that researched the collapse for the school, criticized the system under which construction work is done for state university campuses, saying it lacks adequate safeguards and reviews.

It also directly contradicted longstanding claims by the project’s Glendale-based builder that the $11.3-million project did comply with code requirements.

“It is Dames and Moore’s opinion that the design of Parking Structure C was not adequate, in fact that it was conspicuously flawed,” the university’s consultant concluded. The report cited several possible scenarios stemming from inadequate construction to explain the collapse, saying it probably began with the failure of several interior vertical support columns.

The five-level, four-acre garage was the only structure on the heavily damaged CSUN campus to suffer a near total collapse in the Jan. 17, 1994, earthquake, whose epicenter was only about 1 1/2 miles to the south. A contractor hired by the university recently began demolishing the remains of the structure. University officials have said they do not plan to rebuild it.

Cal State officials commissioned the report in part to determine whether they had a case to sue A. T. Curd Builders of Glendale, the contractor for the 2,500-space garage built in 1990. But state university officials later said they did not expect to file a lawsuit.

Reached late Monday, Andrew Curd, president of A. T. Curd, said it was difficult for him to comment without having seen the report, but added, “We disagree completely. . . . That structure met or exceeded code in every case. The ground motion just wildly exceeded” the forces the codes anticipated, he said.

Litigation over the collapse could prove embarrassing to university officials, because in a dispute over adequacy of the design, they previously sided with the builder over their own plan-check consultants.

Hired to ensure that construction plans conformed to building codes, the consultants, Esgil Corp., said Curd claimed a higher value for the structure’s ability to flex with earthquake shock waves than the design warranted.

But university officials sided with Curd after the company provided letters from several engineering firms supporting its interpretation of the building code. Esgil then submitted a revised plan-check list that said its objections had been “resolved,” but one of the firm’s structural engineers refused to sign off on the plans.

The report released Monday criticized two key elements of the way Cal State officials handled the project: the decision to allow a design-build contract--in which the same firm oversees both aspects of the project--and the plan-check process, in which Esgil was brought in only after construction was about to commence.

The Dames and Moore report urged the CSU system to “consider not using the design-build type of procurement for permanent university structures.” The report added, “It is our opinion that the advantages . . . may not be worth the price of potentially low-quality designs that, even in a moderate earthquake, may fail.”

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And the report called on CSU to “employ a true ‘peer review’ system, not just an ‘after the fact’ plan review (where the reviewer has limited ability to correct major conceptual design flaws).”

“Such an ‘afterthought’ plan review . . . is basically too little and too late. There is far too much pressure on the reviewer to not find problems,” the report said.

In a concession to the builder that would likely complicate any potential lawsuit, the report said researchers failed to find “any clear, unambiguous deviations from ‘specific’ building code requirements. . . .” And the report found no substantial faults with the workmanship or materials used.

Instead, it said, “there is a series of general provisions in the code which the designers of Parking Structure C apparently did not address” relating to the structure’s flexibility to withstand earthquakes. And it added, “A consistent failure to address a series of such provisions leads directly to a conclusion that not only the ‘intent’ of the code, but the code itself was not complied with.”

Charles Thiel, Cal State Northridge’s chief building official and chairman of the CSU system’s Seismic Review Board, said he doubted the school would sue over the collapse.

University administrators would probably have kept the report confidential if they had wanted to use it in a lawsuit, he said. “You like to have your technical cards close to your vest.”