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Bayshore Town Center’s management team reunited shoppers and employees with their cars after a parking structure partially collapsed last month. People who were retrieving vehicles said they had to sign a waiver first. Staff photo by Ethan Duran.
Bayshore Town Center officials announced Monday that contractors will rebuild pieces of Bayshore’s partially collapsed parking structure on E. Silver Spring Drive.
“The next phase of our remediation plan is to continue to work strategically with our engineers and development partners to reconstruct the areas affected in the Silver Spring Garage. Engineers have confirmed that the unaffected areas of the garage were not structurally impacted and that the scope of work will be contained to repair the affected zone. The nature of the incident remains an ongoing investigation by Bayshore’s insurance company,” officials said.
Video provided to the Daily Reporter by Bayshore Town Center officials showed the third floor of the Silver Spring Parking Garage partly collapsing onto the first floor Feb. 23. Saturday morning, crews used a crane to remove the six remaining vehicles from the third floor of the building.
Before people could get their vehicles back, they had to sign a waiver agreeing that Bayshore wasn’t liable for damages, Joyce Ann Washington said. Washington was just one of several vehicle owners who couldn’t access their vehicles due to the partial collapse. She said each person with a stranded vehicle got a check for $200 for “inconvenience.”
“Everyone got a check whose car was stranded,” Washington said. Bayshore officials “said it was for our inconvenience.”
Washington said that she needed access to her car again and because she had to sign the waiver to get her car, she said she didn’t have time to consult with a lawyer before signing the waiver. She said she wasn’t sure what would have happened if she hadn’t signed, but she was excited to get her car back.
“Vehicle owners were given the option to sign a waiver either in the office or with a Bayshore staff member at the vehicle before handing over the keys. Bayshore ensured that everyone had an opportunity to check their vehicle before handing over the keys to us and signing any waiver. We ensured that they were satisfied with the condition of their vehicle and that the vehicle had no damage. Vehicle owners were given the opportunity to modify the waiver if they desired to do so,” Bayshore Town Center officials said in a statement.
Bayshore Town Center’s management team reunited employees and shoppers with their vehicles on Wednesday by driving them down a makeshift ramp connecting the first and second floors.
While an investigation is ongoing, a former contractor who plowed snow for the Bayshore Town Center said it was likely another snow removal service piled snow in one area and caused the collapse.
The snowplow drivers currently hired by Bayshore “didn’t know what they were doing,” MCR Group, LLC President and CEO Jesse Hoffmann told The Daily Reporter in an interview. His company was hired in 2010 and worked for the town center for a decade before losing their bid.
The Daily Reporter reached out to Cypress Equities and Bayshore Town Center, but neither were available for comment before publication.
While no one was injured in the collapse, three vehicles were crushed under snow and rubble before being removed, North Shore Fire Rescue officials said.
Milwaukee also experienced 3.3 inches of falling sleet the day before the collapse, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service said.
Steve Schuster contributed to this report.
