Two Centre County townships are addressing sinkholes that could pose public safety hazards: one at the Nittany Mall in College Township and another at the construction site of a new outpatient medical center in Patton Township.
A sinkhole formed at the Nittany Mall in December. College Township council members said during a recent meeting that the property’s owner, Namdar Realty Group, stopped working on fixing the sinkhole in April.
“If College Township wants to see this open hole and this safety hazard corrected, I believe that we're going to need to do this ourselves to our own workforce and then back bill through our legal processes to recover those funds," said Jere Northridge, College Township’s assistant township engineer.
Council members agreed last week to award a $153,490 bid to the construction company, HRI Inc., to repair the sinkhole. Township supervisors said they can place a lien on the Nittany Mall property or fine the owners if they do not pay back costs to repair the sinkhole.
"College Township is moving closer to issuing a notice to proceed to our contractor, HRI, to begin the work on the sinkhole remediation," Mike Bloom, the township's assistant manager, said in an email to WPSU. He did not say exactly when work will begin.
College Township had filed five civil suits against Namdar Realty Group in Centre County Court, each one in the amount of $12,000. The court has already entered judgements in three of those cases, approving $36,000 in judgement fees.
In Patton Township, Amy Farkas, township manager, shared an update at Wednesday night’s supervisors meeting on a sinkhole at the Mount Nittany Health stormwater basin.
“That basin didn't do so well during the last hurricane, the Tropical Storm Debby, so we actually have a meeting on Friday to talk about some corrective action steps," Farkas said.
Farkas said the township had to remove part of a bike trail near the site because of the sinkhole damage.
The site’s developers say repairing the sinkhole is difficult because of its sandy soil. Friday’s meeting will include Patton Township supervisors, the outpatient center construction site’s engineers, and the Centre County Conservation District.
