Two Centre County communities are cleaning up sinkholes that could pose a public safety hazard: 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 Nittany Mall in December. College Township Council members said during a recent meeting that the property’s owner, Namdar Realty Group, stopped work to repair the sinkhole in April.
“If College Township wants to see this open hole and safety hazard fixed, I believe we need to do it ourselves with our workforce and then pursue legal costs to recover the funds,” said Jere Northridge, College Township’s assistant engineer.
Council members agreed last week to award a $153,490 contract to repair the sinkhole to contractor HRI Inc. The council said it could place a lien on the Nittany Mall property or fine the owners if they don’t repay the cost of repairing the sinkhole.
“College Township is close to issuing a notice of intent to our contractor, HRI, to begin remediation work on the sinkhole,” Mike Bloom, deputy township 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 District Court, each seeking $12,000. The court has already entered judgments in three of those cases and approved $36,000 in court costs.
In Patton Township, township administrator Amy Farkas provided an update on a sinkhole in the Mount Nittany Health stormwater retention basin at Wednesday night’s supervisors meeting.
“This basin did not fare so well during the last hurricane, Tropical Storm Debby, so we have a meeting on Friday to talk about some corrective measures,” Farkas said.
Farkas said the municipality had to remove part of a bike path near the site because of the damage caused by the sinkhole.
Developers of the site say repairing the sinkhole is difficult because of the sandy soil. Friday’s meeting will be attended by Patton Township supervisors, the outpatient center’s civil engineers and the Centre County Conservation District.
