Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2005 | 8:30 a.m.
While the historic downtown post office might look sturdy, experts say a major earthquake could cause huge pieces of the building to break off and tumble to the ground.
To prevent that scenario, the State Historic Preservation Office is awarding the city of Las Vegas a $249,000 grant to shore up the 72-year-old Stewart Avenue building next to City Hall -- from the basement to the third story roof.
"The worst case is that, during a major earthquake, the walls might fall out and the parapet could fall outward onto the public sidewalk or to the street," said Mel Green, a structural engineer from Torrance, Calif., who was contracted by the city last year to do an extensive study of the building.
"The major earthquake that could cause that to happen may never occur or could occur as early as this afternoon."
Green, who specializes in studying historic buildings, has yet to release his final report on the post office's structural integrity. The state grant, however, proposes to do what Green has recommended in his preliminary findings:
"Without the retrofitting, I do not know if we could ever open the building to the public," Nancy Deaner, cultural affairs manager for the city, said of the building that was acquired from the U.S. government in 2002 and renamed POST Modern. City officials are turning it into a museum.
The Las Vegas City Council was expected to approve the acceptance of the state grant as part of its agenda at its meeting today.
The city apparently has known for some time that the seismic retrofitting was necessary.
A 1993 study, prepared for the General Services Administration, warned that the post office required seismic strengthening. The deficiencies cited included some of the things that are now being addressed.
Green said that while he did not know why the federal government did not make seismic repairs before selling the building to the city, he noted that the probability of a major quake in Las Vegas is far less than in San Diego or other cities where more immediate attention was needed for older buildings.
Also, both Green and Deaner said it is not uncommon for buildings that are more than 70 years old to be in need of seismic retrofits.
"(The historic downtown post office) is made of unreinforced masonry -- that's just how they were built back then," Deaner said. "As a result, they are potentially very dangerous during an earthquake."
Green said that when the post office was built "there was not much awareness of earthquake potential in Las Vegas. Now, we are more aware and the building code says do something about it."
City officials expect to receive the state grant money in September. It will bring to $2,115,329 the amount in federal and state grants the project has received during the last three years.
The seismic repair grant is the fourth -- and largest -- grant for the old post office from the State Historic Preservation Office, which operates under the Commission for Cultural Affairs.
"This (seismic repair) work is vital to preserving this historic building," Green said. "It is a unique resource. It gives us a feeling of what downtown Las Vegas was like in the 1930s."
The old post office also served as the blossoming town's first federal courthouse and was one of the sites of the 1950s hearings into organized crime by Sen. Estes Kefauver's committee.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who as an attorney tried some of his early cases in that building, has recommended that, among other things, the facility be used to highlight the mob's early influence in town.
The museum is expected to open in 2007.
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