An architectural assessment, the Joplin city manager says, will have to be done to answer City Council questions about what repairs would be necessary to prevent further deterioration of Memorial Hall.
Some council members in September called for a report on the cost to prevent further decline of the building at 212 W. Eighth St. and the cost for repairs that would allow the city to reopen the building for public use. The building has been closed since June 2020 when a partial roof collapse occurred.
City Manager Nick Edwards, asked by the Globe when that assessment would be done, said it will likely be early next year. In a recent interview, he was asked the status of the council’s inquiry.
“We will have to go through a bid process, which takes us a little bit of time to bring on an architect to help us find those costs,” Edwards said. “Another component is a survey. We will need to develop a survey and present that to council to see if that will answer the questions they want answered.”
City staff now is drafting a request for qualifications to advertise for proposals from firms that can perform the architectural assessment, the city manager said Tuesday.
The city-owned multipurpose building with 2,700 seats will reach its 100-year anniversary in 2025.
In April 2022, voters rejected a $30 million ballot proposal by the city to increase property taxes and personal property taxes to repair and renovate it and add an expansion wing on the west side. Opponents said they did not support the amount of the project and/or did not want to pay more property taxes.
Although the more expensive expansion and renovation were recommended by those who prepared the report, it also outlined a repair estimate of $6.4 million that could ready the building for use again.
Council call
At a meeting Sept. 23, council member Phil Stinnett said the city should do something to safeguard the building from further deterioration.
“We have been sitting on issues at Memorial Hall for quite a period of time,” Stinnett said. “We have not long ago got information back about what it might take dollarwise to do the improvements that were proposed without doing the building (addition) on the side.”
Stinnett said he has received some inquiries from residents and had some conversations with other council members about having the city look into the cost to do the minimum repairs “to stop the deterioration that’s occurring every day because it’s getting worse, and we all know that.”
The second objective, he said, would be to get it in a condition so that it could reopen and be used by the public again.
“I would like to see what our minimal costs would be because sooner or later we’re going to have to address it,” Stinnett said.
If the building has to be demolished because of further deterioration, residents will blame city officials, he said.
A 2020 feasibility study by SFS Architecture, of Kansas City, listed the problems found then with the building, some of them known by city officials for several years.
Recent findings
A significant issue in that report was the partial roof collapse that involved the west side of the building.
After the collapse was found, wooden stud walls and joists were installed by a contractor to support the existing roof along the entire west side of the auditorium.
The collapse was related to corrosion of exposed steel bars on the roof beams. The report recommended that concrete repairs be done to restore the integrity of the concrete roof structure. That would require temporary shoring, chipping of the bad concrete, cleaning and coating the exposed reinforcing steel, and patching the repair areas with a concrete repair material.
After Stinnett’s remarks in September, parks Director Paul Bloomberg said he inspects the building periodically and has not seen any changes in the stability of the framing done in response to the roof collapse.
While a list of issues with the building may sound serious, “All in all, the structural assessment of the building was not as bad as some folks may have thought it to be,” SFS architect Brian Garvey had said of the firm’s findings.
“It’s actually a very solid building,” he said. “There’s just some things that need to be stopped in their tracks with any project that occurs in the future to make the building safe and prepare it for another 100 years of service to the community.”
Other problems
The problems cited by the SFS report in addition to the roof:
• Two issues are related to a 1976 building remodel. One of those is a crumbling concrete ramp across the front of the building that was described in the 2020 report as being in poor condition and in need of removal. It was added for accessibility, but soil movement under the ramp has caused settling, resulting in cracking. The weight of the stairs at one time collapsed a sewer line beneath it. The ramp has been closed to the public for several years.
• The other is cracking in the exterior brick wall near the elevator at the northeast corner of the building. The cracking is the result of foundation settling, according to the report.
• Mortar joints at the bottom of the building’s exteriors holding stone panels are loose or deteriorated. The report recommended fresh tuck-pointing to restore the joints and prevent moisture infiltration.
• Discolored parapet walls were found indicating moisture issues with the brick walls. The architects recommended removing the existing paint and replacing it with a breathable coating that would allow moisture vapor to escape.
Though the building was dedicated as a war memorial and for the use of veterans organizations, the Robert S. Thurman American Legion post quit meeting there first because of a temporary mold issue the parks director said was remedied and now because of the building’s closure.
Legion officials have said they would like to be able to use the hall again.