ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The City of St. Augustine is about two months away from finishing a project it describes as critical, but one you may not have known about.
If you’ve walked through the courtyard of the Alcazar building, which includes City Hall and the Lightner Museum, you’ve likely noticed the scaffolding against the building. It’s part of a $1.35 million project, funded through a state grant, to spray waterproofing material on the outside of the nearly 150-year-old building.
“If water keeps going into this building, it will crumble over time,” said Barb Moore, deputy director of general services for the City of St. Augustine.
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Moore says the City Hall building, which was first constructed in the late 1800s, was made from a material called coquina, a mix of concrete and shells. Moore tells Action News Jax the material isn’t only nearly impossible to find, but absorbs water and has caused rain damage to the building over time.
“Over time, with just the age of the structure, it will wear away, if we don’t do something. So it was critical, but it was just a matter of time and money,” Moore said.
Until recently, the city says nothing has been done to fix the cracks and crumbles seen on the outside of the building and damage to its windows because of worries from historians. The building is on the National Park Service’s register of historic places and historians, from what the city tells us, have been concerned about the chance that any repair or restoration work would change the look of the building.
“It will save the integrity of the building. You’re going to see cracks still because it was built in the 1800s. But what we are doing is we are making the structure sound,” said Moore.
Even though the work on the city hall side of the building is close to being finished, the city says there’s another round of waterproofing work needed for the exterior of the building on the side that houses the Lightner Museum. There aren’t any plans to waterproof other buildings in the city with similar water repellent material, but the city hopes the work being done on City Hall will inspire leaders of other coastal cities to consider the same solution to protect their pieces of history.
“It should save us in the end. It will save us everything,” said Moore.
The city says the waterproofing material being put on the building right now should be able to protect it from water damage for the next 10 years.
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