Glebe Parking Garage (170 Second Ave) | 13.m | 4-5 fl | Completed

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Leaking Glebe garage: City of Ottawa sues contractor and architects

Tom Spears
Postmedia
December 29, 2018


The Glebe parking garageAshley Fraser / Postmedia

The City of Ottawa is suing the contractor and architects who built a four-storey parking garage in the Glebe, claiming that the garage is prone to unacceptable leaking.

The city is asking for $1.75 million in damages from Laurin General Contractor, Architecture 49 Inc. and PBK Architects.

The municipal garage on Second Avenue west of Bank Street has 141 spaces and was built to provide parking for Lansdowne. The city’s claim says poor waterproofing on the top level allowed water to leak into electrical conduits, service panels and wall joints, causing damage to the electrical systems, lights, security cameras, parked vehicles and concrete.

The work was done in late 2015 using a neoprene membrane under the asphalt. The garage opened in 2016, and the city document says leakage started to appear during the first winter of operation.

Dennis Laurin, the president of the contracting firm, said he was surprised to hear of the lawsuit on Saturday. He acknowledged there is a leaking problem.


The Glebe parking garageAshley Fraser / Postmedia

“There is a performance issue specifically with a membrane there on the top floor. That’s really the core problem,” he said.

“We, as constructors, are responsible for corralling men and machines to deliver” on the contract, “and the material is not fit for purpose,” he said.

“The city and consultant and us, we all recognize that and we are working to correct it. That is why I’m very, very surprised that litigation has been initiated.”


The Glebe parking garageAshley Fraser / Postmedia

He said that while his company wants to find a solution without legal action, “litigation is a process to get everybody to pay attention to a situation and apply some urgency to it.”

But he said that “all parties are working to get that resolved.”

Representatives from the city were not able to be reached for comment.

None of the claims in the statement of claim have been proven in court. The Laurin Group and the architects have not yet filed a statement of defence.

https://ottawasun.com/news/local-new...0-1913657a1f36