Not yet four years after the completion of construction on the $3.6 million Third Street Promenade project, the multi-purpose downtown roadway that was designed to serve as a part-time community event center and attract visitors is riddled with damages that city staff hope the contractor will repair at no cost.
Dozens of the individual paving stones and tiles that compose the street’s surface are cracked or broken, or they have popped loose from the roadway. Some are sinking into the roadway.
While the damages do not yet rise to the level of a safety hazard, according to city engineer Karl Bjarke, the visible impairments are evident by a rattling sound heard when vehicles drive up and down Third Street, which is bothersome to at least one resident of the street.
City staff and contractor Joseph J. Albanese, Inc., are in the process of determining the cause of the damages and working out a time table for repairs.
“We’ve been keeping an eye on it, to see if the problem is going to grow, so we can understand why they need to be repaired,” Bjarke said. “If it was a safety hazard, we would consider it significant. We’re not seeing any safety hazards right now, but we paid good money for (the project) and want to make sure we’re getting what we paid for.”
The street, which is about one-tenth of a mile long and connects Monterey Road to Depot Street, is an atypical design. Both the driving surface and sidewalks are composed entirely of paving stones and tiles that range in size from about 1- to 3-square-feet. The stones were secured to the surface below with an adhesive which has already failed at the intersection of Monterey Road, requiring repairs in that area over the last couple of years, Bjarke said.
The Third Street Promenade project was completed in April 2009 and was mostly financed by the city’s former redevelopment agency and a state grant. It was designed to be aesthetically inviting, with decorative bollards and landscaping. Toward the west end of the street, the two lanes separate around a miniature park with benches and a closed-off stone surface that can accommodate a stage or vendors for community events.
The street is also designed to be closed to motor traffic for such events, including the ongoing summertime weekly Thursday Night Street Dance, Mushroom Mardi Gras and the Taste of Morgan Hill.
Determining if the extent and timeframe of the current damages on the project is common for similar projects is difficult, as there are few such projects known in the Bay Area that are constructed of similar materials.
Albanese Construction has a history of public works projects in the “greater Bay Area,” according to the company’s vice president and chief operating officer Kevin Albanese. The company has built a number of road projects employing a variety of materials, architectural features and designs, but the Third Street Promenade is the first Albanese is aware of that is made entirely of paving stones and tiles.
Albanese could not comment on why the pavers and tiles are damaged as he is not fully aware of the nature of the damages and the city’s complaints. However, he said in general, it is uncommon for the contractor to hear such complaints on projects they built within only four years of the completion of construction.
Public works and road jobs make up about 40 percent of Albanese Construction’s business, Albanese said.
The contractor has been notified of the damages and will likely meet with the city “in the next couple of weeks” to determine what repairs should be made, Albanese said.
Morgan Hill Councilman Gordon Siebert, who has spent his career managing public works projects for cities and counties in California, said though he is unfamiliar with any other roads made of similar paving stones, in general four years is too soon for a new road to show widespread damages.
“Typically in any (public works) job you don’t expect significant failure to occur,” Siebert said. “If it happens I would bring in a contractor, and a neutral third party, and ask for a technical analysis of why it’s failing.”
The construction contract for the Third Street Promenade provides a one-year warranty, just like for most other road projects. Damages observed on the driving surface so far appear to be of the kind covered in the warranty, but Bjarke said further inspection will determine that more definitively.
The city also still holds a bond put up by the contractor in the amount of 50 percent of the contract cost, Bjarke added. That bond was contracted in order to guarantee the warranty obligations.
The contractor has already repaired some warranty damages on Monterey Road, at the intersection of Third Street, which is made of the same materials. Some of the tiles came loose because the adhesive used to secure them to the ground below failed, Bjarke said.
The city has not considered closing the street to vehicle traffic, either permanently or on a regular part-time basis other than for scheduled and permitted community events.
Businesses and residents on Third Street have noticed the cracked, broken and loose tiles, but they have also complained about other designed elements on the Promenade since it was completed.
The co-owner of BookSmart, which is at the corner of Third and Depot streets (though the main entrance is accessed via Second Street) noted that decorative bollards in median areas along the street are a frequent target for errant motorists. Some drivers backing into parallel parking spaces on the side of the street often hit 3-foot posts installed to designate the spots “because people don’t park the way engineers want them to,” according to Brad Jones, the store’s co-owner.
During the project’s design process, city staff had a series of meetings with the Morgan Hill Downtown Association and the Property Based Improvement District, in which Jones said the city was urged to use alternate design features, including “stamped concrete” instead of individual pavers on the driving surface.
“Aesthetically, it’s beautiful, but obviously the specifications aren’t working,” Jones said.
Third Street resident Claudia Pagaza, 62, said some of these imperfect designs have turned her retirement “dream” into a “nightmare,” and the rattling sound of cars disturbing the loose pavers is the least of her concerns. About three months ago, for example, she said a vehicle hit one of the bollards in the mini-park in front of her house. The heavy stone monolith rolled into her front yard where her husband was standing, almost hitting him. She also worries about the effect of the street being closed off for events on a potential emergency for the residents.
“I feel invaded, like they don’t care about us,” Pagaza said.
