THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 5, 1996 TAG: 9605050033
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 227 lines
It cost the taxpayers $6 million and took three years, but the downtown federal building - the one that used to be surrounded with a chain-link fence to keep falling bricks from hitting people on the head - is finally fixed.
Almost.
The roof still has to be replaced. And there are those pesky windows that won't quit leaking. And, oh yes, there are the lighting problems, and the matter of replacing the heating and air conditioning systems.
But most of the work - removing and carting away hundreds of thousands of bricks from the eight-story building and replacing them with white concrete - is done.
And there's more good news. An informal survey of people who have to look at the building all day was positive.
``I think it's an improvement,'' said Raymarie Sarsfield, hostess of The Trolley, which sits across Granby Street from the building that once was regarded as one of Norfolk's foremost eyesores.
``I really like it. The color blends in more. I thought the other one looked cheap.''
Carissa Powers, an employee of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, surveyed the building on a recent lunch break. ``The other one was ugly,'' she said. ``The orange was awful. This is 100 percent better.''
Troy Wilkerson, owner of Expert Shoe Repair, dubbed it the Red Monstrosity. ``A vast improvement,'' Wilkerson said.
One person who didn't want his name used said simply: ``Hey, at least it's not orange and the bricks aren't falling.''
Today, the total bill for the 17-year-old building, including the original construction, is $20 million and rising. Former U.S. Rep. G. William Whitehurst, who championed the project at first, last week proclaimed it the ``biggest squandering of federal money'' in Norfolk.
Even Whitehurst, who declined to attend the dedication of the building in July 1979 and refused to have the building named after him, thinks the new look is a ``great improvement.''
It wasn't aesthetics that led the building's architects to call it the Red Albatross.
The workmanship was shoddy at best, and inspections by the contractors and oversight by the federal government were virtually non-existent, said John Thompson, spokesman for the regional office of General Services Administration, which acts as landlord for the federal government.
There is plenty of blame to spread around, but the taxpayers must pay for the mistakes. The companies are long gone, their owners dead or not legally responsible, Thompson said.
``It was absolutely a crime in what was done in constructing that building,'' Whitehurst said last week. ``That daggone GSA. You have to fault them ultimately because the buck stops with them . . . It's too late to kick anybody's butt. I can't answer why GSA didn't move against the contractors then. They certainly should have. I griped about that building full-time.''
By the time the GSA tried to take action against the contractors, it was too late, said the GSA's Thompson.
Norfolk's Duke Construction Co., which did the brick work, dissolved in 1982 after its principal owner died. The construction manager, Turner Construction Co. of Philadelphia, and the architects who designed the project are out of business, Thompson said.
The GSA, responsible for oversight, has since overhauled the way it handles such projects, primarily as a result of the Norfolk case. Thompson said the Red Albatross might be the worst example of shoddy construction on a federal project.
``The problem with the Norfolk facade in a nutshell was poor workmanship,'' Thompson said. ``The brick facade wasn't anchored properly. There were supposed to be joists between the floors so all the weight of the bricks isn't sitting on the brick at the bottom, just on the bottom of each floor.''
But the joists were never installed. Bricks began to crack and pull away from the building. When water seeped through the cracks, got behind the bricks and froze, the situation worsened. Eventually the brick facade pulled away from the building.
``There should have been someone there to ensure they were installed,'' Thompson said. ``When the current work was done, they found the joists in the building, I think in the basement.''
But Thompson's recent remarks are a far cry from GSA's position in 1981 when problems with the building first surfaced.
When Whitehurst called for an investigation that January, GSA insisted there was nothing wrong and that Duke was working on repairs.
GSA inspectors called the cracks in the brick ``purely cosmetic.''
At the time, there was some question about whether the contracted engineers and architects had any responsibility for oversight. At least one engineer said the GSA had taken on that responsibility. However, all contracts and documents prior to 1979 have been lost, Thompson said, making it difficult to determine exactly what happened.
By the end of January 1981, Duke Construction fired its own salvo at the GSA, saying the parking garage was in danger of collapsing because it had not been adequately waterproofed. Company president Lee Duke said the bricks on the exterior of the building were cracking because they had not been properly waterproofed by GSA.
It was not until 1993 that the GSA announced the building's brick facade would have to be replaced and the parking garage repaired. The agency estimated the cost at $1 million. That was some $5 million short of the mark. The work began in April 1993.
Repair on the garage was finally completed last year. Water had shorted out the lighting and damaged structural supports. The total bill for the garage came to more than $600,000.
Removing the bricks, building a new facade, replacing the lobby tiles and installing new windows cost $5.4 million.
Those figures do not include the cost of the new roof, a new heating and cooling system or updating offices, many of which have the original metal walls and archaic electrical outlets.
GSA's Thompson said he could not estimate what the eventual cost of all the repairs will be.
Some longtime Norfolk residents rue the day the stately Monticello Hotel was demolished to make way for the federal building.
``The old gal went hard,'' said Janie Whitehurst, wife of the former congressman. ``They had the very devil tearing her down. One good sneeze would bring down the present federal building.''
The Monticello Hotel was built in 1899 and became one of Norfolk's finest hostelries.
It featured a beautifully carved wooden bar, brass doorknobs, intricate plaster relief work on the ceiling in the Gold Room, massive crown moldings and Japanese-motif wall coverings. There was a vaulted cathedral ceiling in the lobby. One could look down on the lobby from a two-story balcony with ornate scrollwork in its wrought-iron railings.
The building survived the great fire of 1918, but not the urban renewal of the 1970s. On Jan. 26, 1976, as thousands gathered to watch, it was toppled by explosives.
But before the hotel closed, a prophetic conversation took place in one of those elegant rooms.
It was February 1963 and city officials were about to be bamboozled by a young con artist with a brilliant idea: tear down the hotel and replace it with a large building that would house federal agencies.
The young man, who called himself Dr. French, lunched with Chamber of Commerce officials, discussed building sites with the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority and wined and dined City Council members. All later admitted being totally captivated by ``French's'' charm and impressed by his knowledge of the area.
The young man said he was representing Del Webb Enterprises, a leading Texas real estate developer. He was actually an escapee from a federal mental institution.
He first convinced the hotel's sales director, Trafton Robertson, to book him into a VIP suite. For his trouble, Robertson found a lovely silver service on his desk, a gift from French, purchased with a check that eventually bounced.
The young man with dark hair told chamber and hotel officials that he had determined the site of the hotel was the most appropriate in the city for a large federal complex.
Curtis Brooks, a member of the chamber in those days, was interviewed about the incident in 1975. ``Looking back on it, it's almost eerie what he suggested - a twin-tower structure to house federal agencies,'' Brooks recalled then.
The building today has two sections. One houses offices, the other a parking garage.
As French worked city leaders, the hotel's general manager, Jack Amory, began to feel uneasy. He placed a call to Webb in Houston, who told him he had no representative named French. Armory's next call was to the FBI.
French had made a critical error. He registered using a real phone number from his past. When Armory called the number, the woman who answered asked if the young man had large brown eyes. She knew him, she said. His name was not French and he was no doctor.
With the FBI waiting nearby, French was called to the phone. ``He talked for a minute and then just broke down completely,'' Armory recalled in a 1975 interview. ``He cried and sobbed and told the whole story.''
``French'' had escaped from St. Elizabeth's Hospital, a federal mental institution in Washington and had an outstanding warrant in Texas for a $10,000 fraud scheme.
Later, FBI officials reported, the man - whose real name was long forgotten by those involved - wrangled an inmate's job at St. Elizabeth's when he returned there. He promptly inserted himself on the payroll and drew fat government checks for several months until he was caught.
The FBI said French was a great con man, the kind that ``could talk you into believing the streets were paved with gold.''
It proved an ironic foreshadowing. In the modern-day version, government officials were led to believe that the federal building was properly paved with brick.
French would certainly have approved.
One thing about the federal building has not changed. Office workers have been unhappy with the building from Day One. Many are still unhappy. They mop up leaks, move buckets around to catch water, rig makeshift extension cords to run equipment and hang pictures on metal walls with magnets.
Despite broad green windows on the outside, workers still look out on the world through narrow windows. The outside windows are just an illusion.
In the winter of 1979, workers were forced to move into the building before it was completed. One floor had no working lights.
Huge stains appeared mysteriously on the carpeting, which separated at the seams. Electrical outlets were housed in six-inch holes in the floor, causing concerns about twisted ankles.
Local GSA officials have worked hard to make life inside the building bearable.
Some agencies have departed. The Social Security Administration moved two years ago to Robin Hood Road. The Federal Bureau of Investigation built its own building off South Military Highway last year. The Immigration and Naturalization Service moved to North Military Highway last month.
The building still houses the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Secret Service and other federal agencies. U.S. Customs has temporarily moved into the building for three years awaiting the renovation of the historic U.S. Customs house downtown, said local GSA director Frank Berg said.
``We're now at 90 percent occupancy,'' Berg said.
Berg has had his share of headaches. In 1994, a fire broke out on the sixth floor, ignited by a welder's torch. Automatic sprinklers soaked the office and leaked into offices on lower floors causing more than $100,000 damage.
Ultimately, he's responsible for keeping about 40 agencies happy with their leases and keeping 125,000-square feet of occupiable space rented out.
``For as big as this project was, there were very few headaches for the people working in the building,'' Berg said. ``This building used to win the ugliest building in town. Now people can't believe how good it looks.''
Patrons across the street sitting at the Trolley bar on a recent lunch hour agreed.
``It looks so much better; I think I'll have another beer,'' one patron said.
It'll look even better after a third, another said.
Perhaps a fourth would help conjure up the image of Dr. French sitting in the old Monticello Hotel, gleefully contemplating a madman's vision come true. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
FILE
BEFORE
Called the Red Albatross, Norfolk's Federal Building had to be
surrounded with a chain-link fence to keep pedestrians away from
falling bricks.
JIM WALKER/The Virginian-Pilot
AFTER
Carissa Powers, an employee of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing
Authority, surveyed the revamped building. ``The other one was ugly.
The orange was awful. This is 100 percent better.''
by CNB