FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - The Broward County Courthouse is ready to reopen its top floors after structural concerns led to their closure.
Speaking with 7News on Thursday, Broward County Public Works Director Trevor Fisher shared the good news.
At issue were cracks that appeared in five beams on top of the courthouse last week.
“There’s no fears whatsoever in terms of breakage of those beams,” said Fisher.
The cracks forced the closure of the top four floors as a safety precaution.
“We immediately sent those photographs off to the design engineers, and we wanted them to take a look at it and tell us what their thoughts are,” said Fisher.
What they learned is that double U-shaped rebar, called stirrups, were to be placed every 12 inches inside the horizontal beams. Instead, construction workers installed single stirrups of rebar.
“Now that we have discovered this, our engineers will continue to work on the fix,” said Fisher.
As to what the fix will be, county officials said they are not quite sure.
Fisher indicated that the courthouse, now operational for more than six years, is safe, but they’re going to begin double checking other parts of the building.
“We are going to take a closer look at the structural components of the building, just to ensure that this is not repeated,” said Fisher.
Fisher said they have turned the top four floors to the chief judge and said they can do anything that they want at this point.
They have also issued notices of deficiency to the construction company working on the building to let them know that something was not done correctly and they will have to fix it.
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