Greensburg hopes to raze shuttered parking garage by Westmoreland Hospital

Greensburg officials have a plan in place for demolishing the city’s shuttered J. Edward Hutchinson Parking Garage, but the state’s blessing is needed.

The garage has been closed for about two years, since the city determined it wasn’t worth the projected cost of more than $2 million to extend the life of the then-42-year-old structure.

Officials with the adjacent Westmoreland Hospital concurred with that assessment. They are awaiting word on a plan by the city to fund demolition of the six-story garage. The 475-space garage supplemented parking for the hospital and is connected to it by an enclosed walkway over Shearer Street.

Mayor Robb Bell has said he doesn’t want to see the garage linger as an eyesore. He said the city is proposing to redirect a $1.5 million grant it received through Pennsylvania’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program to help pay for demolishing it.

“The grant was originally earmarked for the development of a downtown hotel,” Bell said. “It has been several years, and we’ve had no interest from developers on a hotel to date.

“So we decided to ask the Office of Budget for an extension on the grant to collaborate with the hospital and reformulate our mutual plan to include the demolition of the garage.”

In addition to seeking state approval, Bell said that plan would involve forming a “subrecipient agreement” with the hospital — one of three hospitals in Westmoreland County and one each in Butler and Clarion counties that are included in the Independence Health System. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, a subrecipient is a third party that would benefit from or collaborate on a project with the party receiving the grant.

“The demolition will help the hospital by creating space for any expansion/development plans that they may have in the future,” Bell said.

The garage sits on land owned by the health system. It is situated between parking lots for hospital patients and visitors and a Medical Arts Building that’s part of the hospital campus.

Bell doesn’t anticipate that the deteriorating garage will be razed before spring.

Negligible impact

If state funding is approved, the city and the health system would share responsibility for demolishing the garage and the attached walkway, according to Independence spokesperson Robin Jennings.

“The cleared space could become additional surface-level parking for the health system as funds and needs dictate,” she said.

Hospital officials have indicated the garage’s closure had a negligible impact on patients and visitors given the development of multiple free parking areas throughout the hospital campus, which is mostly situated between Otterman and West Newton streets, and Finfrock Way.

“Parking needs fluctuate from day to day based on patient need,” Jennings said. “The continued expansion in our structural heart program as well as the rising demand for outpatient services means higher utilization of available parking.

“Our physician practices and outpatient clinics on the Westmoreland Hospital campus are extremely busy day in and day out. Being able to offer free parking to staff, patients and visitors is very important to us.”

The hospital campus offers about 1,320 parking spaces. Independence also leases 35 spaces in the city’s Wib Albright lot, along Pallitta Avenue, for use by students training on the campus.

The hospital had leased a parking area between the hospital and the closed Overly door manufacturing plant. Independence now owns that parking lot, along with the plant, at Otterman Street and Washington Avenue, which it bought last spring for $1.5 million.

Independence indicated it has no immediate plans for the property aside from continuing to use the existing parking spaces.

“The acquisition of the property was part of the health system’s long-term strategic plan for development and growth,” Jennings said.

The former Overly property remains on the tax rolls. However, the two entities that recently merged to form Independence have retained tax-exempt status.

Westmoreland Hospital, Latrobe Hospital and Mt. Pleasant’s Frick Hospital operated under Excela Health. Butler and Clarion hospitals operated under the Butler Health System.

Plugging the gap

While closure of the Hutchinson garage may not have added greatly to the demand for parking spaces on the Westmoreland Hospital campus, the city and the hospital shared in revenue generated through parking fees.

The city’s annual share of that revenue — about $139,000 before the arrival of the covid-19 pandemic — was used for public safety spending, including purchase of police vehicles and firetrucks.

To make up for the lost funds, city council in December 2021 approved taking out a $1 million loan to help cover costs of public safety vehicle purchases over the following five years. Council also approved 1 mill of additional property taxes to repay the loan.

City council is continuing to make repairs to the smaller, two-level Dr. Robert W. Queale parking garage along Maple Avenue.

After a hole appeared in the lower-level ceiling and concrete crumbled and fell, a portion of the Queale garage was closed from late July into September of last year for emergency repairs. That cost about $155,000.

A second round of less-urgent repairs, to fix peeling and chipping concrete, will result in another partial closure of the garage. Council recently awarded a $140,000 contract to low bidder Allegheny Restoration to complete the garage repairs.

At full capacity, the Queale garage offers 38 leased parking spaces and 50 metered spaces.

Additional options

The city’s other remaining parking garage, the Robert A. Bell Parking Garage on West Otterman Street, has 400 spaces — half of them leased and half open for transient parking.

The city was leasing some of its parking spaces to Westmoreland County while the underground parking garage at the county courthouse was undergoing reconstruction. That lease has since ended, and the two-level courthouse garage reopened in early July, once more accommodating about 175 courthouse employees.

The city also maintains about 750 metered parking spaces along public streets and in various lots. It leases about 700 parking spaces among its lots and roughly 100 others along streets.

A recent study of parking in downtown Greensburg concluded there are enough spaces to handle demand, although some spaces might not be located as conveniently as motorists would like.

The study found that 24 off-street parking areas were only about half-full at a peak hour of 10 a.m. on a weekday. Leased spaces were excluded when calculating that percentage.