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Aspen Red Brick’s rebuilt wall will be rebuilt

Carolyn SackariasonThe Aspen TimesAspen, CO Colorado
Carolyn Sackariason/The Aspen TimesEd Clifton removes hundreds of bricks from the Red Brick Center for the Arts in Aspen on Wednesday. Rudi Britvar Stone, a local masonry company that rebuilt the wall, is starting over at its own expense after city's historic preservation and asset management departments stepped in and said the workmanship wasn't up to par.
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ASPEN, Colorado – Brick by brick, the historic wall at the Red Brick Center for the Arts in Aspen was torn down, rebuilt and is now being torn down again only to be rebuilt a second time.Much to the dismay of the nonprofits who are located directly behind the wall, they have been listening to the sounds of jack hammering and construction for days on end.And just when they thought it was over, the city’s historic preservation and asset management departments stepped in and said the workmanship wasn’t up to par. At issue is that the spacing between the bricks was an one-eighth of an inch too wide for it to match up with an adjacent historic wall at the arts center’s entrance.So a crew from Rudi Britvar Stone, the masonry company that did the original work, is starting over at its own expense.The company was hired to repair and restore certain portions of the historic building at a cost of $49,000, said Jeff Pendarvis, the project manager who works in the city’s asset management department.City officials recognize that they could have overseen the project better – before all the work on the front wall off Hallam Street was done.”It was an error on their part and our part,” said Sara Adams, the city’s historic preservation planner. “This kind of stuff happens, unfortunately.”Adams said she and Amy Guthrie, the city’s historic preservation officer, have been overseeing the project since it began in June, when the building permit was issued.The work on that particular wall began around the Fourth of July holiday. Adams and Pendarvis inspected the job last week.”We all agreed that it didn’t look good and we all agreed the wall should come down,” Pendarvis said.Pendarvis said he went out of town while the work was being done and the city should have communicated with the building’s tenants better.”I know some of the folks at the Red Brick weren’t crazy about the communication,” he said. “It’s a mea culpa.”Paul Britvar, the general manager for the masonry company, said he wants the job to look right.”It’s really tough to match [the bricks and spacing] up,” he said. “All of the walls look like they’ve been done at different times and we’re going to let that tradition carry through the Red Brick building.”He said the work will be complete no later than Saturday.”Everyone will come back and be as happy as they were with what we did on the back of the building,” Britvar said.csack@aspentimes.com


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