Engineering firm says underground ramp on May's Island can support a crowd on top of it

CEDAR RAPIDS - Let the fireworks begin.

A local engineering firm has concluded that the underground parkade on May's Island can “safely support” a crowd standing on the lawn atop the parking structure.

The Freedom Festival some weeks ago announced that it would move the July Fourth fireworks show back to the downtown, and the festival said it would fire the fireworks from the May's Island lawn, if possible, and not from the Cedar River as it had done in past years.

The city then asked engineering firm Shoemaker and Haaland, with offices in Coralville, Cedar Rapids and Keokuk, to conduct a new structural assessment of the parking structure to make sure it was able to handle the July Fourth event.

Doug Weihe and Adam Cannon, professional engineers with the firm, state in a letter to the city, “We are confident at this time that the roof of the structure can safely support the required live load for public gathering spaces.”

The two engineers add that their final structural assessment of the ramp will be complete soon with a recommended plan of action for addressing its problems, many of which were the result of the 2008 flood, they state.

The lawn above the parking ramp continues to be surrounded by orange plastic fence to keep people off it.

Some have suggested that unresolved questions about the parking ramp, which provided parking for City Hall in the Veterans Memorial Building on the island, helped make a case for those who wanted to build a new city hall. The City Council, though, has now decided to return city offices to the building.

Mike Jager, the city's veterans memorial director, said on Tuesday that the city plans to renovate the parkade with disaster funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has obligated about $1 million for the work.

Jager said the renovation, in part, will include stripping the lawn on May's Island of its sod, fixing the leaky membrane on top of the parking garage and planting new sod. Electricity also will need to be restored to the underground ramp, which has about 140 parking spaces, Jager said.

City Council member Don Karr, who has reviewed the Shoemaker and Haaland letter to the city, said on Tuesday that he was “real pleased” with the letter. Karr has said for months that the ramp was sound and simply needed to have the membrane atop it fixed.

“The engineers say there's not much wrong with it. They kind of substantiated what I said,” Karr said.

The Shoemaker and Haaland engineers do note that some of the sidewalk panels above the parking ramp have minor elevation differences that “could possibly become a trip hazard in some locations.”