Major Flaws Found in Pacoima Clubhouse

Los Angeles city building inspectors have declared the Boys & Girls Club of San Fernando Valley, built just six years ago at a cost of $1.2 million, structurally defective and city officials will launch a fund-raising drive today to build a new clubhouse.

The history and details of the problem remained unclear, but the club has sued the contractors, architect and engineer of its building--which has buckling floors and holes in its walls--according to city officials and documents.

The 24,500-square-foot clubhouse at 11251 Glenoaks Blvd. in Pacoima, which offers programs for poor children and adolescents from the area, was built in 1986 with about $400,000 of the cost coming from city funds.

It remains open for use, but it will be cheaper to replace it entirely, for about $1.2 million, than to remedy up to $1.6 million in defects cited by inspectors, city officials said.

Until it can move into new quarters, the club, used daily by hundreds of northeast Valley youths, will seek city permission to continue operating its programs in the flawed building after making some “requisite temporary repairs to assure the children’s safety,” according to a club press release that is to be issued today.

LeRoy Chase, executive director of the club, declined to comment on the situation Wednesday.

However, a source familiar with the club’s activities said: “The city has said the building is not totally safe, but it has also said if it were unsafe, they wouldn’t allow us in there.

“If we had thought it was unsafe, we’d have closed it.

“The city has been kind of coy about what this all means,” the source said, noting that the city may fear being sued for failing to catch the structural problems during the usual inspection of the construction work.

“That’s their job,” the source said. “The $64 question is why they didn’t catch this earlier.”

Meanwhile, Mayor Tom Bradley and Councilman Ernani Bernardi--who represents the area--have made plans to announce today their support for a fund-raising drive to raise money to replace the buildings and to replenish the club’s treasury, drained by the legal fight with contractors who built the present one.

“They’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on litigation costs,” the source said.

The club’s long-range plan is to build a replacement structure on an adjacent parcel it owns.

On April 10, Robert Harder, a top city Department of Building and Safety official, issued a written notice ordering the club to complete in 180 days the repair of six major structural violations.

Harder could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

In a news release to be issued at today’s news conference by Bradley and Bernardi, the club says its building has “significant structural defects” and is “seriously flawed.”

The club has determined that it would cost $1.2 million to $1.6 million to strengthen the existing building to meet the city’s building code standards, including earthquake safety provisions, the source said.

“Their independent studies led them to believe that building a new building would be less expensive than retrofitting the existing one,” said David Mays, Bernardi’s chief deputy.

The source said its board of directors has been torn by the dilemma of what to do about the building.

“There have been yelling matches about this at board meetings,” said the source, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

The defects in the building have resulted in buckled floors and large holes in the walls, the news release and the source said.

The problems became evident in 1987 soon after the building was constructed and by March, 1988, the club had filed lawsuits against its builders, architect and engineer, the news release said.

This spring, structural engineer Arnold Bookbinder, hired by the club to reinspect the building, concluded that the problems were more severe than originally believed, the source said.

“If on a scale of 1 to 10, the problems were originally thought to be a 4, with 10 being worst, then after the new inspection it was found that the problems were 8.5,” said the source.

After corroborating Bookbinder’s findings, Harder issued his order that the building’s defects be corrected in 180 days.

By May, some of the defendants being sued by the club agreed to pay $550,000 in damages, the news release said.

However, the club is still suing the architect, engineer and several subcontractors for $1 million in damages, the release said.

Bookbinder could not be reached for comment.