Rebuilt Westmoreland County Courthouse garage, plaza nears completion

Jun. 16—Work will soon be completed on a $7 million project to rebuild a two-level parking garage under Westmoreland County Courthouse, officials said Friday.

Public Works Director Greg McCloskey said parking for about 175 courthouse employees is expected to begin on June 30. Meanwhile, additional delays will postpone the opening of the reconstituted courtyard plaza and Main Street entrance to the courthouse complex until the end of July.

"That's when we're supposed to get it back," McCloskey said of the revised schedule that has seen months and months of construction delays.

Officials said the cost of the rebuilt garage and plaza has remained unchanged despite the delays.

The project was originally expected to take about six months to complete when the garage and plaza were closed off in March 2022. The site was closed after an engineer's report determined the two-story underground parking structure was in danger of collapse due to water damage caused over the preceding four decades.

More than 15 months later, the project finally appears to be nearing an end.

McCloskey said the parking structure is almost finished, with workers set to paint floor lines and wall numbers over the next two weeks. Once completed, the garage will provide parking for as many as 175 courthouse employees, many of whom have had to park in lots rented by the county since early last year.

Nearly $134,000 has been spent to pay for employee parking around Greensburg since March 2022, according to the Westmoreland County Controller's Office.

Elected officials have been allowed to continue parking at the courthouse in about two dozen spots that were not impacted by the garage reconstruction.

Holding cells on the upper parking level of the garage used by the sheriff's department to house inmates transferred from the jail to attend hearings at the courthouse were demolished as part of the rebuild. Work to reconstruct those cells will be pushed back to later in the year, McCloskey said.

Sheriff James Albert said the delays will continue to drive up costs associated with additional manpower needed to guard and transport smaller batches of prisoners to Greensburg from the Hempfield lockup throughout the court day.

"We're using more manpower and have had to go back and forth to the jail more often. Once we get the new cells, we'll be back to where we were before the construction," Albert said.

Officials planned to have the refurbished plaza finished this spring, but delays caused by supply issues, waterproofing of the exterior structure and a minor design change to adjust the elevation levels of the courtyard pushed back the opening another month, McCloskey said.

Starting next week, work crews are expected to begin to pour the top level of concrete for the plaza. It's a process that is expected to take several weeks and require as many as 12 sessions.

"It's taking longer to pour the cement than we originally anticipated," McCloskey said.

Work crews are expected to install outdoor amenities including benches, greenery, flagpoles, metal lettering that spells out "Westmoreland" and lighting in late July and into August. Installation of fabric shade structures will be put off until next spring.

McCloskey said the county has tentatively scheduled a dedication ceremony for the new plaza on Aug. 16.

Rich Cholodofsky is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Rich by email at rcholodofsky@triblive.com or via Twitter .