A parking garage at a N.J. hospital was declared unsafe. The same vendor supplied concrete in the deadly Grays Ferry garage collapse.
Brayman Precast and High Concrete were involved in constructing the CHOP garage that collapsed in April, OSHA records show. “This isn’t supposed to be happening at all,” an engineering professor said.
About two weeks after the deadly April 8 collapse of a parking garage in Philadelphia’s Grays Ferry neighborhood, building inspectors shut down a new parking garage at a hospital in Toms River, N.J.
“This building is declared unsafe for human occupancy,” reads the bright orange sticker slapped on the entrance to the Community Medical Center garage.
The same vendor that supplied precast concrete panels for the garage being built for Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which collapsed mid-construction, also supplied similar slabs for the Toms River garage, according to a township official.
Two of the roof panels in the New Jersey garage were found to be sagging under their own weight.
The structural problems in Toms River, which have not been previously reported, raise questions about whether improperly reinforced concrete could have played a role in the Philadelphia collapse, and whether other buildings or construction sites could be unsafe.
Abieyuwa Aghayere, a structural engineering professor at Drexel University, said the similarities between the New Jersey and Philadelphia garages could be useful to investigators seeking to identify the cause of the collapse.
“It’s worth really taking a closer look at,” Aghayere said. “It would point me in that direction: Check the materials that were used to make those roof panels.”
“This isn’t supposed to be happening at all,” he added.
The 700-car New Jersey garage, which was used by patients, visitors, and doctors, had been open for only 14 months. It remains closed.
Drew Chabot, acting business administrator for Toms River Township, in Ocean County, told The Inquirer that building inspectors declared the garage unsafe on April 23.
The sagging roof panels, according to Chabot, were supplied by Brayman Precast, a subcontractor for another firm, High Concrete Group.
U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration records confirm that both companies also worked on the Grays Ferry garage.
» READ MORE: Failure of precast concrete roof is suspected to have triggered Grays Ferry parking garage collapse
Three ironworkers were killed in April when a precast concrete roof panel on that garage crashed onto a stairwell, causing a chain reaction through all seven floors.
In the Toms River case, the roof panels that were “deflecting” — essentially bending more than normal — were also located above a stairwell.
“Exactly the same situation,” Chabot said.
Robert Cavanaugh, a spokesperson for RWJBarnabas Health, which operates Community Medical Center, said in a statement that the garage was closed “after a structural deficiency was identified in the north stairwell.” It is expected to reopen later this month.
Cavanaugh declined to comment on the nature of the deficiency, what prompted the inspection, and what corrective action was taken.
Lance Lorah, a vice president with High Concrete Group, said in an email Saturday that a subcontractor notified his Lancaster County-based company on April 20 of a “potential concern with the panels.”
“The concern originated with the subcontractor, not with any inspection or observation by the facility or its officials,” Lorah said. “Our own records show that HCG promptly relayed the subcontractor’s concerns to the general contractor, who in turn informed the building owner. The steps taken afterward were preventive.”
Lorah declined to name the subcontractor or general contractor, or explain the nature of the problem.
Chabot, the Toms River official, said High Concrete had subcontracted the roof panel work to Brayman Precast, based in Western Pennsylvania.
Brayman officials did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did the general contractor on the New Jersey garage, Turner Construction.
Robert Mongeluzzi and Andrew Duffy, the lawyers representing the families of Mark Scott Jr., Matthew Kane, and Stepan Shevchuk, the three workers killed in the Philadelphia collapse, said they are also looking into a possible defect in the concrete panels.
“Our investigation is laser-focused on the CHOP garage project’s safety culture as well as the structural integrity of the precast roof sections,” Mongeluzzi said in a statement.
» READ MORE: Concrete subcontractor working on CHOP garage speaks out for first time since collapse
Duffy said his firm is also investigating whether defective panels could have been used in “other projects beyond the CHOP garage.”
“Three devastated families have asked us to expose all safety failures, hold all companies responsible for the failures accountable, and seek safety changes so no other families have to endure the indescribable pain of having a loved one abruptly taken from them,” Duffy said.
Aghayere said concrete slabs are extremely dense — generally about 150 pounds per cubic foot — but weak under tension, so they need to be reinforced with either rebar or prestressed strands of coiled steel.
He said it was alarming that the roof panels were already sagging at the New Jersey garage, and that at least one of the same concrete subcontractors had been working on the Philadelphia job.
“If a material deficiency is confirmed — for example, deficiencies in the prestressing strands or concrete properties — it would be prudent to evaluate the structural adequacy of other panels supplied by the same precast manufacturer to determine whether they may be similarly affected," Aghayere said.
The Philadelphia garage collapse is being investigated by OSHA, as well as the city’s law department. City Council is also setting up a special committee to investigate.
OSHA and city officials declined to comment on the progress of those investigations, as did a CHOP spokesperson.
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