TRPIL fights mold that halted renovations
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Joann Haser, executive director of TRPIL, is shown in an area where all the mold has been removed at the TRPIL building.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Michael Frawley with Valley Environmental works on mold remediation Tuesday at the TRPIL building.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Mold is shown on the walls at the TRPIL building Tuesday.
Four months after the city ordered a stop to renovations at TRPIL’s new building, work to remove the mold that prompted the order is underway at the West Maiden Street site.
“We hadn’t anticipated anything of this magnitude,” said Dave Ball, project manager for the nonprofit, of the problem that forced a halt to other work at the nearly 90-year-old former YWCA.
The site now includes a 27,000-square-foot original structure with three above-ground floors and a basement. A 5,000-square-foot section for an elevator was added as part of the project.
Building inspectors with the firm Harshman Civil Engineering Group issued the stop-work order in September – several months after black mold had been found throughout much of the three-story, 27,000-square-foot original building – to ensure the safety of contractors working there.
TRPIL – which does advocacy and provides a range of services for people with disabilities – bought the building about three years ago. It had been unoccupied for at least 12 years previously.
The group broke ground on major renovations in the $9 million project that will prepare the building to be its new headquarters and community center in July 2017. Waller Corp., which is based in the city, is the main contractor.
Ball said work to treat the walls and other affected surfaces with dry ice began about three weeks ago, and he expected the rest of the work to take “another two to three weeks.
The contractor hired for the mold removal, which is costing about $250,000, is Hunt Valley Environmental in Upper Burrell Township, Westmoreland County.
“This was a gotcha,” Ball said. “We knew that we were going to have some cost, but nothing like what this is going to cost. But you always have a contingency with your projects.”
Ball said that the wallpaper that had been in the building was held up with a wheat-based paste that acted as an ideal food source for the spores.
“When we took the wallpaper off, we exposed the paste. That’s … like a Petri dish for mold,” he said.
To fight it, workers close off a section of the building with plastic curtains and use compressed air to propel frozen carbon dioxide over the affected surfaces, removing the mold and first layer of plaster under it.
Ball said the group considered several possible methods of dealing with the problem.
“We looked at sandblasting it, and that has the disadvantage of leaving sand all over the place that you have to clean up,” he said.
Meanwhile, a chemical treatment would involve toxic cleaners, and workers still would have to get the paste off the wall.
“With all things considered – the safety, the utility, the effect on people – this was the best way to go,” Ball added.
Joann Naser, TRPIL’s director of development, said she isn’t sure when the whole project will be completed.
“It depends on when the remediation is finalized, then when the subcontractors for Waller Corp. can come in and do their portion of the work, such as the data cabling and the drywall,” she said. “Those are the next big steps, and working on the parking lot and installing the elevator system.”