A busy downtown Arlington parking garage is set to be demolished after structural engineers recently determined it’s no longer safe.
The garage is located off of Mesquite Street behind the City Tower building, which is home to the city’s municipal courts.
An Arlington city employee discovered a large hole on the upper level of the two-story structure on their way into work.
“Obviously we closed it and got everybody out from underneath it and got everybody from on top,” said Steve Cooke, Assistant Director of Public Works and Transportation for the City of Arlington. “We did an evaluation and found out there was some damage.”
Structural engineers were brought in to assess the situation and determined the garage would have to come down.
Cooke said despite structural improvements the city has made to the garage in recent years, it’s more than 30 years old and is at the end of its life cycle.
“It’s begun to fail now in a way that we can’t do anymore repairs,” said Cooke.
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The upper level of the garage is currently closed off.
Engineers gave the all clear for drivers to continue parking on the lower level of the garage until it’s demolished.
“As a temporary measure, we can still have people parking underneath here as long as we don’t have anybody parking on top,” said Cooke.
Demolition is expected to get underway in about three weeks. Once that’s complete and the debris is removed, the space will reopen as a parking lot.
“We appreciate the temporary inconvenience that this presents to our employees and obviously our customers coming to the courts building,” said Cooke. “We know that’s going to be a big struggle, but we’re going to try to minimize that to two weeks.”
Cooke said the demolition will cost approximately $40,000.
