GALVESTON — Fear that a 40-ton section of wall on a historic downtown building is on the verge of collapse is causing parking problems for one of the island’s largest employers.
After city officials earlier this month noticed crumbling brick veneer and a gaping crack on the southeast wall of the vacant Medical Arts Building, 302 21st St., they notified American National Insurance Co. that it would have to move employees out of the parking area to the east and south of the failing wall.
The lot is barricaded now, and American National is seeking a quick remedy to a problem that has emptied spaces for about 150 employee cars in an area where parking spots are scarce.
American National owns the parking lot, but the building’s ownership is unclear.
The Galveston Central Appraisal District lists the owner as Chasseur LP, while a development group going by Gal-Gate Ltd. said it owns the building.
Gal-Gate, which blamed Hurricane Ike for damage to the building, secured some money from the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association this week and is seeking permits from the city to demolish the wall, representatives of the development group said.
Time is of the essence, said island architect Michael Gaertner, who has been hired by the building’s owner.
The building’s veneer is peeling at a precarious spot.
“It’s doing so in an unfriendly location of about five stories in the air,” Gaertner said. “It probably weighs 40 or 50 tons.”
The brick veneer is fastened to the wall by a type of masonry tieback, Gaertner said.
“The wind can actually shake the veneer back and forth, just like taking a piece of metal and wobbling it back and forth until it breaks,” Gaertner said. “That’s what happened here; the metal is fatigued from pushing back and forth. It was rusty to begin with, and the now tiebacks have failed and the wall is unstable and in danger of falling.”
The art deco Medical Arts Building, designed by architect Andrew Fraser, was an annex to the American National building of 1913, a structure that was demolished in 1972, according to Galveston Architecture Guidebook.
American National, which now occupies a skyscraper across from the Medical Arts Building, years ago donated the building to the Galveston Historical Foundation, charged with protecting old island structures of architectural or cultural importance.
The foundation later sold it to Galveston Lofts Acquisition Partners, who later sold it to other developers, who, like Gal-Gate, intended to transform the building into lofts or condominiums.
But the foundation maintains deed restrictions on the property requiring owners to preserve it and not to alter its exterior.
The failing wall is part of the building that was added after 1929 and is not considered historically significant, most parties agree.
Still, the foundation wants to see demolition plans and engineer reports before the wall comes down, said Dwayne Jones, executive director.
Demolition is expected to begin in a matter of days, Gal-Gate representatives said.
But American National is so eager to resolve the parking issue, it has hired a structural engineer and submitted plans to the city to construct a fence around the danger zone, while allowing employees to resume parking in the lot, said CEO G. Richard Ferdinandtsen.
American National’s downtown tower has a parking garage, but it can’t accommodate the company’s 1,000-plus downtown employees.
American National’s proposal, while an improvement, still would result in the loss of 21 parking spaces for the company’s employees, Ferdinandtsen said.
“We don’t want to permanently lose 21 parking spaces, he said.
If Gal-Gate is unable to begin demolition right away, city officials say they would be amenable to American National’s plans of building a fence around the wall.
Ultimately, American National intends to recoup from Gal-Gate costs it incurred resolving the parking problems, Ferdinandtsen said.
