Cajun Coast taking steps to preserve Welcome Center

Legal counsel for St. Mary Parish’s Tourist Commission is recommending Cajun Coast spend $20,000 to preserve its sinking Welcome Center in anticipation of the $3.8 million facility being raised from the swamp.

Attorney Gary McGoffin, of Lafayette-based Durio, McGoffin, Stag and Ackermann, said the parish, architect and construction firms involved with the project are optimistic the 16,000-square-foot structure can be raised to its original position – nearly 5 feet above where it currently sits – and repaired. The parties, McGoffin said, have agreed to work together to fix the problem instead of entering into a drawn-out litigation process.

“You cannot litigate and negotiate at the same time,” he said. “We have to figure out how to cure the building first before we can began to look at the causes.”

McGoffin is urging Cajun Coast take steps to preserve the building “because all indications are the facility continues to be under stress due to the unequal elevations resulting from the foundation settlement.”

The attorney said the facility is continuing to settle into the swamp where it fell June 14.

“When you enter the building, there is more damage now, than what there was a month ago,” he said. “The front doors don’t close. There is additional cracking of the glass components and sheetrock. The toilets in the first floor men’s room are elevated about one foot above the floor. There is water intrusion inside at the low point in front with mold starting up the sheet rock adjacent to the pooled water.”

The concrete slab has also settled approximately one-quarter inch, McGoffin said. The good news, he said, is builders believe the slab is settling on its foundation versus continuing to move.

Just days away from its July 15 completion date, the center simply gave way a month earlier, falling into the swamp and, in the days since, sinking more than five feet.

The center sits at the Martin Luther King exit near an elevated portion of U.S. Highway 90.

Carrie Stansbury, director of the St. Mary Parish Tourist Commission, said she still has no answers as to why the building began to sink. She said the commission’s board, which does business as the Cajun Coast Tourist Commission, hired Washer Hill Lipscomb Cabanis Architects of Baton Rouge to design the facility and Laplace-based Aegis Construction Inc. to build it.

“We’ve got plans to make this more than just a Welcome Center, a place to hold mini theme parties, a place for vendors to set outside and sell their wares. I have every bit of confidence we will get to launch all of these projects, sometime in 2013,” she said.

McGoffin said designers, builders and the parish are in discussions to fix the obvious problem – curing the foundation issue. He said the low point of the structure is to the left of the main entrance.

Among the fixes being considered is utilizing the services of Expert House Movers, a company experienced in large lifts whose work has been featured on the Discovery Channel.

“Our approach here would be to roll the facility into the parking lot for the foundation work,” McGoffin said.

The group is also considering hiring Boh Bros Construction Company, based in New Orleans.

“Boh Bros. is the best pile-driving company, anywhere,” McGoffin said. “What they’re suggesting is for them to cut a hole in the floor near the area where the building is sinking and drive pilings to provide an additional foundation.

“They actually have a pile driver that they can move into the building, and drive pilings in four-foot sections. As the piling gets close to the floor level, they can weld an additional four feet in order to drive down to the desired level they want to reach.”

To secure the foundation, McGoffin said several approaches are being considered, all of which would require 88-foot pilings.

It is uncertain if new pilings would be installed. The original foundation, he said, is being supported by 50-foot concrete “friction” piles.

Friction piles, along with clay, hold the pilings in place. McGoffin said friction piles differ from end-tip bearing piles, which extend to the load-bearing strata nearly 90 feet below the surface.

A second approach would require the existing pilings to be spliced with new lengths and driven to the load-bearing strata until they become end-tip bearing piles. The pilings could also be cut below the surface and a large concrete mat poured on top. The mat would support the structure, similar to a typical slab-built structure, and the underlying pilings would further resist settlement of the mat, McGoffin said.

“The costs, time and safety issues related to each approach are being analyzed and compiled. No final recommendations are possible without that additional information,” he said.

McGoffin vowed that Cajun Coast will be working and planning in their new center in 2013.

“How deep into 2013, I don’t know. But they will be in there,” he said.

Stansbury hasn’t released an account of how much the tourist commission has paid to construct the building. However, she did say roughly $1.6 million was bonded.

“We borrowed money to pay for the welcome center and bonded a funding source to pay off the bonds,” she said.

McGoffin said inquiries have been received from providers concerning payment. “But the contractor has advised that each of those claims is related to materials that are included in the pending payment requests and are premature since payment has not been made to the contractor.”

He said the contractor and the architects are reviewing documentation for all services rendered and materials provided prior to June 14.

Tourist Commission Board Member Dale Rogers said he is anxious to see the Welcome Center repaired.

“I’m looking forward to seeing answers. When I first heard it had sunk, and after I saw it, I said, ‘This ain’t good. We’re going to have to tear it down.’”

Destined to be the gateway to St. Mary Parish, the Cajun Coast Tourist Commission’s Welcome Center continues to experience damage from creeping swamp water and foundation settlement, according to Gary McGoffin, an attorney with the Lafayette-based firm Durio, McGoffin, Stag and Ackermann, the firm hired to represent Cajun Coast. McGoffin said the builders and commission are in constant talks to find a way to restore the building, which was just days away from completion.

COURTESY PHOTO