Snellville to repair 4 years of City Hall leaks

By Shane Blatt

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Snellville City Hall has been a source of pride for Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer.

To construct it in 2004, the city demolished a blighted shopping center and realigned Oak Road. The 33,000-square-foot building, a neoclassic design with a cupola and four columns the breadth of ancient oaks, gave Snellville some identity and acted as a focal point for the new city center, Oberholtzer said.

"It's always been a point of pride," he said. "We spent so much time and effort on it."

But since the 2006 move-in, the $6.5 million building has leaked and no one knows whether poor construction or design is to blame.

"As long as I've been a council member, there's been great big baggy stretch marks up on the rotunda showing where water was leaking down and messing up the paint," City Councilman Tod Warner said. "That's unacceptable."

Last week, work crews with Parker Young Construction put up scaffolding around the second floor atrium as well as around the outside of the cupola on the roof. Crews, paid for through insurer GIRMA, expect to repair the problem in about a month.

Steve Macon, project estimator with Parker Young, said workers are removing sheet rock and grout and drilling holes to locate the source of the leaks.

"The cupola itself has a number of areas of concern and a lot of it has to do with flashings that don't exist or weren't installed," Macon said.

Flashings are pieces of sheet metal installed in hinges of the roof to guard against leaks.

"We may actually change the materials on the cupola itself ... to make it more watertight," said Macon, who estimated the final repair bill could hit $150,000. The city's deductible is $1,000.

The city moved into the building in January 2006 and started seeing leaks around the cupola the first year, officials said. Those leaks were repaired but returned after several storms, officials said.

Councilman Tom Witts said the city contacted the architect, Precision Planning, but those talks were unproductive. So Witts said he photographed the area with infrared cameras and sent pictures along to the city's insurer.

Officials with Precision Planning said Friday the project's architect was on vacation and no one else could speak on the matter.

"Somebody dropped the ball somewhere," said Oberholtzer, who is also an engineer. "That was a brand new building and it leaks. It's been a real pain in the you know what."