Center to reopen Tuesday after water damage

A sprinkler system that burst a gasket in the Hillsborough County government building Sunday night had recently been inspected after a similar incident over the Memorial Day weekend.

The fire protection system leak caused extensive damage to the first and second floor of the Fred Karl County Center, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd., forcing the closure of the building to the public Monday and the relocation of 1,200 government employees. The leak knocked out running water to the building because the water sprayed and damaged a circuit board that controls the water pumps, said Tom Fass, director of real estate and facilities management for the county.

County employees continued to answer calls to central phone numbers, as well as emails.

The building will reopen Tuesday morning during regular hours, a news release said.

Fass said officials hope the board room is repaired on time for the commission meeting Wednesday and that the commissioners' offices and other areas of the first floor will be repaired by Wednesday evening.

Fass said the building's fire protection system had its five-year inspection about a month and a half ago by a contractor, Piper Fire Protection, which replaced some gaskets as part of the inspection. One of those replaced gaskets failed over Memorial Day weekend, causing roughly more than $200,000 in damage, Fass said. Because that leak happened over the long weekend, crews were able to make the needed repairs without any disruption to county business.

The damaged gasket was replaced and the remaining gaskets were inspected by Piper, which determined the system was safe, Fass said. Then about 7:30 p.m. another of the replaced gaskets failed, and this time the damage was more extensive, including the electrical circuit.

Fass said he had no estimate on the cost of the damage. Fass said the county is working with its insurance underwriter, AIG, on repairs.

Piper is now replacing all of the replaced gaskets, and an another firm is being brought in to review the system. Fass said he doesn't know if the first set of replaced gaskets were faulty or if the problem was in the installation. This is very unusual circumstances, he said. It's still too early to speculate what caused the failure. We know the gasket failed.

The leak damaged the county commissioner's board room and some commissioner offices and elevators that carry employees to the parking garage inside the building.

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Center to reopen Tuesday after water damage