Repairs on Coliseum Press Box Welds Expected to Begin Today

With the start of the college football season less than one month away, work is scheduled to begin today to repair defective welds in the new press box at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

The repairs will be overseen by Law/Crandall Engineering Inc., a firm not associated with the original construction. Cost of the repairs, along with testing conducted in May and June, has already exceeded $100,000, Coliseum officials said.

“We’re trying to wrap up the loose ends on this welding and the other violations, or deficiencies,” said Donald G. Hubka, principal building inspector with the city of Los Angeles, referring to deviations from the construction specifications. “Bottom line is, they’re going to repair it.”

However, it remains unclear who--taxpayers, contractors or consultants responsible for the construction shortcomings--will pay for the remedial efforts . The original work was paid for entirely with emergency federal and state funds after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, although the state, which is conducting a lengthy audit, has yet to pay $8 million of its share for the overall work at the Coliseum.

Roger A. Kozberg, an insurance executive who is president of the Coliseum Commission, said he does not intend, for now, to seek remuneration for the repairs and testing from those responsible for the original work. Unless he is persuaded that they performed negligently, Kozberg said, he will not press for money from contractors.

“We’re going to take a look and determine if we find there’s any negligence on anybody’s part,” Kozberg said. “I have not yet heard anything to suggest there’s been any negligence.”

At least two Coliseum commissioners, Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro and Lisa Specht, a lawyer in private practice, said this month that seeking payment from the contractors or consultants should be explored.

Testing conducted this summer at the direction of the Coliseum Commission found defects in 12 of the 47 examined welds. Multiple defects were found in several of the welds that will be repaired. The testing was performed in response to a May 5 Times article reporting problems experienced with the welding during construction of the press box last year.

Among other things, numerous crucial welds fractured repeatedly in a San Bernardino welding shop, where they were repaired over and over. Some of the difficulties were documented in inspection reports--but were not shared with project engineers. Inspectors and a welding shop foreman said they would not sit under the cantilevered structure, which hangs out over more than 600 spectator seats.

The new repairs are expected to be completed before USC plays its first home game on Sept. 14, said Richard Holguin, chief of the engineering bureau of the city Department of Building and Safety.

John A. Martin Jr., an engineer retained by the Coliseum Commission to oversee the repairs, said the defects will be removed by grinding and will be refilled with sound material. Martin said exploratory grinding within the past month of three defects found that two were so-called slag inclusions. The third defect, he said, appeared to be a lack of fusion between the weld material and a steel beam or column.

Lack of fusion and slag inclusions can be detrimental to a structure, experts said. They say that both defects provide starting points for cracks, which, particularly in the event of a strong earthquake, can rip through a weld and its surrounding steel.

Martin and the engineering firm that designed and monitored construction of the press box, Nabih Youssef & Associates, have said that they believe the structure is safe. Youssef has yet to sign a letter of certification that would pave the way for a permanent city occupancy permit.

In reports submitted to the Coliseum Commission last month, both engineers praised the welding standards that Youssef required originally.

“The weld standards used for the Coliseum press box exceed even current Los Angeles city standards for earthquake resistance of welded buildings,” Youssef’s report said.

The engineers did not address whether those standards were met. Interviews and inspection documents obtained by The Times show that on numerous occasions, they were not. Youssef’s report cited a requirement for “post heating” of the welds--a laborious, time-consuming process intended to reduce the presence of embrittling hydrogen.

But the requirement for post heating was not conveyed to inspectors or to project welders and was not followed, according to records and interviews.

“I feel pretty certain that was not done,” said James E. Partridge, president of Smith-Emery Co., the firm hired by the Coliseum Commission to inspect the original construction.

Another of the standards cited by Youssef’s report, a 24-hour waiting period intended to detect so-called delayed weld cracking, was “violated many times,” according to a Jan. 25, 1996 memo to Partridge from Smith-Emery Vice President Edward C. Trasoras.

In addition to the repairing of the defective welds, crews this week have been completing various other structural steel work at the 40-yard-long press box, said Coliseum General Manager Patrick T. Lynch. The work has been performed by the original general contractor, Tutor-Saliba Corp., and a subcontractor, Washington Iron Works. The original construction was inspected by Smith-Emery Co., under the direction of Don C. Webb, a consultant who now is playing a similar role in overseeing Tutor-Saliba’s work at a stadium in Oakland.