The Lansing Fire Department to a partial roof collapse call Wednesday at the Cayuga Mall.  A cinder block wall was crushed, causing damage to the roof area around Party City and a vacant store that will be an Advance Auto Parts store.  Workmen alerted the Fire Department and Village of Lansing Code Enforcement/Zoning Officer Marty Moseley around 8am Wednesday.  The entire mall was closed and evacuated while workers shored up the wall and cleared the roof of snow and ice.  The mall reopened Thursday morning.

"The girder crushed about two and a half courses of block," Moseley says.  "So it fell about 16 inches.  As of Wednesday night between 8pm and 10pm they shored the wall up in accordance with an engineer."

Lansing Fire Department responders taped off the mall, reorganized traffic patterns, and helped evacuate the building.

Moseley says the collapse likely occurred because of a combination of old building regulations and melting that turned snow into heavier ice.  He says building regulations when the mall was built in the 1970s may not have accounted for snow drift zones.

"That block wall goes taller because there are different roof lines there," he explains.  "The Advanced Auto has a lower roof line.  It created a situation where there was a drift load.  We had a 22 degrees the day before, which provided for some ice melt.  Ice weighs more than snow.  That ended up causing the failure."

Moseley says the whole mall was closed because he couldn't determine whether, if the roof were to collapse further, what the nature and extent of the impact would be.  He says that potential damage to gas and electrical lines could have affected the entire mall.


Representatives from mall owner Brixmor Property Group and an engineer from Syracuse firm John P. Stopen Engineering, LLP came to evaluate the damage and do what needed to be done to reopen the Mall Thursday.  All stores were open Thursday morning.

"Right now these stores are back up and running," Moseley said Thursday morning.  "The engineer put it in writing to me that he feels that it's a safe environment."

The vacant store will be the Advance Auto Parts store.  Moseley says that the Car Quest store on the corner of Triphammer and Auburn Roads was bought out by Advance Auto Parts, which is relocating it to the Cayuga Mall storefront.  Temporary repairs to the damaged wall may cause construction delays because engineers will have to determine what needs to be done to bring the wall and roof up to present day code requirements.

"Shoring up the wall made it so the girder would not crush the blocks any further until they take into account the new engineering standards, and determine what they're going to have to impose to improve the wall."

D Squared Construction LLC. has experience in making fast, high quality repairs on retail facilities to insure they can be open.  In September 2011 a woman drove her car into the glass foyer at Lansing Market less than 48 hours before the store was to open its doors for the first time.  The Lansing construction firm, named for owners Doug Dake and Doug Boles, quickly repaired the damage.  When the market opened on time there was no evidence of the crash.  They worked through the evening Wednesday to make sure the damaged wall was buttressed.

"D Squared worked flawlessly," Moseley says.  "They did everything they needed to so they could get the stores open again."


Once the engineer determined what needed to be done repairs were delayed because D Squared needed to get get equipment from Binghamton.  They shored up the wall using scaffolding from underneath in the Advanced Auto Parts space.  A crew was also hired to shovel the roof, but was not allowed to begin until the wall was shored up.  They returned Thursday to continue clearing snow from the roof.

Moseley says there was no damage to the inside of the Party City store, including displays and merchandise.  That store was open yesterday as well.

"There wasn't any specific evidence that there was damage to the Party City area," he says.  "But there is also drywall covering that block wall.  There are some stress fractures in the dry wall.  I couldn't tell you if it is just normal wear from the expansion joints or stress the wall had undergone."

He adds that the next step will be engineering to determine what permanent improvements to the cinder block wall must be made.  He says workers will jack the roof back up.

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