St. Joseph County approves immediate temporary repairs after engineers find failed waterproofing in County City Building tunnel

St. Joseph County commissioners voted Nov. 4 to proceed with immediate temporary measures to limit further water intrusion at the County City Building plaza and the pedestrian connector tunnel after engineers said the waterproofing had failed.

Engineers from DLZ and WJE presented results from October excavation and underside sounding work. Ross Smith, a structural engineer with WJE, said, “The good news is, for the most part, the structure of the concrete tunnel is in in very good shape,” and added that the “waterproofing has served its purpose a long time ago.” He said the team found localized spalling and delaminations where water and de-icing salts had penetrated through cracks and breached the waterproofing.

The consultants broke corrective work into two stages. Stage 1 is temporary winter protections and targeted surface repairs the team said could be completed before deep winter weather, including removing and…