The city of Columbia’s Fifth and Walnut parking garage will undergo safety enhancements this fall.
In the past decade, the garage had been the site of several suicides, which has prompted a more insistent public interest in preventing dangerous access on the higher levels.
The bid period for the project opened in August and closes Thursday. The city’s Public Works Department will open and review bids from contractors for the project’s first phase Thursday and Friday, said Sydney Olsen, the city’s public information officer.
The first phase will involve erecting an 8-foot-tall fence on the garage’s ninth level. In the second phase, steel panels individually will be placed to cover the openings on the remaining upper level floors.
Walker Consultants, which designed the plans for the safety features, has previously consulted with the city in regards to the Fifth and Walnut parking structure.
The Fifth and Walnut garage features signage that implores residents to seek help and cameras to help monitor the area. The ninth floor has a railing around the perimeter sitting behind the concrete wall that encompasses the top of the parking garage, but neither of those barriers exceeds six feet in height.
Construction of the fence will be the most significant step taken thus far to address safety concerns on that floor.
The estimated cost for the project was around $300,000, but Olsen said Columbia City Council is reviewing an additional $300,000 for the project.
“Because of COVID, it has been hard to source materials like steel,” Olsen said.
The move toward safety improvements comes as the city faces a lawsuit regarding a suicide that occurred in 2019. The plaintiffs claim the city has been negligent in failing to ensure the design of the Fifth and Walnut parking garage was safe and not moving more rapidly to address safety issues after suicides occurred.
Work on the safety enhancements is set to start this fall, Olsen said, but that is subject to change depending on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
