RVC Village: 2 Lincoln Ave. is now safe

Last week, the Village of Rockville Centre received confirmation that the office building at 2 Lincoln Ave. is safe and ready for tenants to move back in. Engineers hired by the building’s management agency, Orkat Realty, had approved the structure’s safety after inspections by the Rockville Centre Fire Department and the Building Department, according to a village representative.

Many of the building’s commercial tenants, among them doctors’ offices and a major bank, have been working out of temporary office space following a hasty evacuation on Nov. 23, after engineers from the Building Department determined that structural damage to a major support column in the parking garage threatened the building’s collapse.

That afternoon, village officials forced occupants to leave the five-story structure. Since then, the affected column has been reinforced, and four additional columns that were also found to be compromised have also been declared secure.

Shah Pulka, owner of the building and chief executive officer of Orkat Reality, did not return calls seeking comment about the reopening.

“[The reopening] is not up to us. … We just received clearance,” a village spokesman said this week.

The seven-week evacuation has led to many unwelcome adjustments for the building’s tenants. The State Bank of Long Island, one of whose branches was forced out of the building, had to temporarily relocate five employees to its branch in New Hyde Park before settling into temporary office space at 55 Maple Ave.

“I haven’t heard anything yet about a return,” said Deborah Kendrick, State Bank’s director of corporate communications. Kendrick said she was unaware that the building had been declared safe for reoccupation until the Herald contacted her.

Hatsis Laser Vision, another displaced medical practice that occupied the fourth floor of 2 Lincoln Ave., moved 13 staff members to various offices around Nassau County, including its satellite office on Long Beach Road in Oceanside. “We don’t know right now exactly when we’re going back,” Sue Balfe, executive practice administrator for Hatsis, said last week, adding that she received the same news that the village received about the building’s approved status.

Other tenants have found themselves in similar situations. The Orlin & Cohen Orthopedic Group relocated some of its staff to an office on North Long Beach Road and others to 36 Lincoln Ave., just down the street. Doctors and employees of Long Island Medical Associates, which occupies several floors of the building, have moved to the Ryan Office Building behind Mercy Medical Center on North Village Avenue.

Construction of 2 Lincoln Ave. was completed in 1987. Since then there have been periodic inspections.

The columns in the two-deck parking garage consist of steel beams encased in concrete shells. Crews had been working on the columns — even stripping away at some — as part of an ongoing repair project last year that eventually led to the evacuation of the building. Building Department officials said they thought that water may have become trapped between the steel and concrete as a result of that construction work. There are approximately 30 columns in the garage.