Kentlands association was preparing for repairs before retaining wall collapse — Gazette.Net

Tom Fedor/The Gazette

A retaining wall in the Kentlands community recently collapsed forcing two homes to be condemned. The wall has been sured up and a pair of workers were seen stacking the fallen stone on Tuesday morning, along Quince Orchard Road in Gaithersburg.

Last week, when a Kentlands community retaining wall partially collapsed, the neighborhood association had been working on a repair plan for about a year.

According to Kentlands Citizens Assembly meeting minutes posted online, talks about the walls health and stability started in May 2013, when General Manager Randy Fox informed board members of the structures problems and the potential costs for fixes.

By June 2013, the association hired Gardner James Engineering of Columbia, Md., to investigate the status of the wall. In December 2013, the firm shared its findings in a report, which called for more frequent and thorough monitoring of the wall and explained the need for drainage repairs, according to online documents.

We had already planned and budgeted for this sort of work to be going on this year, said Neil Harris, chairman of the board. We were aware that this was a time for maintenance.

He added the association was prepared to spend up to $500,000 on the project.

The process was moving along as expected until a section of the retaining wall abruptly collapsed at about 4:20 p.m. on March 31.

No one was injured, but two townhouses on Ridgepoint Place were evacuated and subsequently condemned by the city of Gaithersburg.

The wall, owned by the Kentlands Citizen Assembly, is made of hundreds of concrete blocks, each weighing 200 pounds, according to Gaithersburg City Manager Tony Tomasello.

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Kentlands association was preparing for repairs before retaining wall collapse -- Gazette.Net