Concrete Cracks Cause County Consternation At Overton Park

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

The brand new basketball and tennis courts in Overton Park are enticing to kids and adults alike. The courts were completely revitalized last fall. The gleaming new surfaces seem perfect for a game of basketball, tennis or even pickleball. But seven months after work on the project concluded, the gates are still locked and the courts are quiet and empty.

According to local Parks and Rec Program Supervisor John Stastny, the courts were not able to be open to the public because of problems with the condition of the court surfaces; problems which go back to immediately after the concrete was poured.

“The County was unable to accept the courts as a completed project because of the extensive cracking in the concrete surfaces that existed by the end of the project,” Stastny said. “It has been a problem from day one. It is a brand new surface and there are a bunch of cracks running all through it.”

The cost of the resurfacing project came in at $388,000. Stastny explained that the County had spared no expense on it to get it right.

“We even paid extra for a post tension concrete slab, which is supposed to prevent the cracking and crumbling,” he said.

The old concrete; which had been riddled with hazardous, uneven cracks; was milled down extensively to a perfectly smooth surface. Then late last summer, a five-inch layer of concrete was poured over the top of it. The new surface was reinforced by a framework of steel rebar capable of being tightened down and brought under pressure. This expensive technique is done to prevent the concrete developing cracks over time. The whole surface was then covered with a special polymer elasticized coating which is supposed to mask any hairline cracking which might occur.

But it was no time at all before cracks became visible, spidering out all through the new surface.
“To be honest, I came down and looked at it shortly after the slab was poured and it looked beautiful at first,” Stastny recalled. “But I came back a few days later and there were already cracks everywhere. They initially said that the coating would take care of that. But it is obvious that the cracks have opened big enough to separate through the coating.”

Because of this, the project did not pass its final inspection by Clark County Real Property Management officials. Legal proceedings have commenced between the county and the contractor over who is to blame for the problem.

The contractor blames the problem on a shallow water table and poor soil beneath the slab which is causing the surface to crack. But county officials say that soil studies were done well before the project began and that the soil conditions were already known, and should have been compensated for, from the start.

Last week, an independent engineering firm was on site drilling core samples through the concrete and into the soil below. This is done to further study the problem and determine who is to blame and what should be done about it.

In the meantime, the gates to the courts in Overton Park have remained locked. And that has frustrated a lot of local residents who have been eyeing those courts all through the beautiful weather of fall, winter and spring; just itching to play on them.

“There is nothing we would like more than to open the gates and let people play on these courts,” said Stastny. “But doing so would be an implicit admission that the project is complete. That would be the wrong thing to do: to just ignore these problems and accept them as-is, when we know that it is likely to get worse as time goes on. The problems need to be addressed now.”