County agrees to spend $150K to determine Randle-Rather needs

Gonzales County commissioners have agreed to spend $150,000 in “soft costs” to determine the full extent of work needed to restore the Randle-Rather Building so it meets requirements as a contributing building to the Gonzales Commercial Historic District.

On Tuesday, May 27, John Duke of CPM, the county’s construction advisor, presented the court with a report of findings from Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates (WJE) engineering firm regarding the facade assessment they conducted in April 2025.

Duke said WJE confirmed through its assessment — using visual observations and “hammer sounding” with rubber mallets on accessible units — that the limestone has incipient spalls in many areas as well as cracks or other distressed conditions in other spots throughout all three floors of the building, with the most imminent safety hazards appearing to be on the south side along the level 3 sill course, level two belt course and at the penthouse.

“Some of the locations they couldn't get to to remove the loose material, mainly up on the upper levels of the building, and then on the east side as well on (Saint Paul Street), just because they don't have scaffold that reaches there right now,” Duke said.

“We talked about the scaffolding overhead protection and the little walkway you have going into the building. They did say that they feel like that is sufficient for right now, and that is doing its job protecting the public entering and exiting the building.

“There are some areas where it's really starting to deteriorate and then there's a lot of areas where it's already past the early stages and going into advanced deterioration,” Duke added.

The probable cause of distress is due to the limestone used being a “poor quality stone” per WJE with distress originating in the bedding plane of the stone units in a manner that is “progressive, ongoing and not predictable.”

Duke said if the county wishes to remove the scaffolding at this time, it would need to install a temporary debris containment netting system to mitigate any falling debris hazards.

“It is a temporary and cost effective measure, but it's temporary in that it has to be replaced every two to five years, and it has to be inspected regularly, and there is some amount of ongoing repetitive maintenance,” Duke said.

Even more importantly, pinning the stone is not a viable repair solution for the limestone, so the county cannot just shave off some of the soft limestone and put dowels into the structure to add new stone to the front for support. Instead, it will have to look into a long-term solution that involves a more comprehensive repair approach, Duke said.

“In talking with WJE and O'Connell Architecture (the design architect hired by the county), what we recommend is them designing conceptually a repair now that they've been on the building,” he continued. “They want us to modify the scaffolding so that they can actually put their hands on the upper levels of the building. They weren't able to reach out and touch some of the upper level of the building due to the scaffold not having a reachable edge on there. They want to come back out and investigate further and take see how much loose stone they can pull off.

“And then two, we recommend doing a schematic design for the repairs, meaning they would actually give us some repair documentation, telling us, ‘Hey, if you're going to repair it all the way, this is what you'd have to do.’ Then we can take that and actually go out and get some hard numbers for you on how much it's going to cost.”

The cost of those next steps would be up to $150,000 and the court can authorize County Judge Pat Davis to approve the expenditure on additional scaffolding, inspection and schematic design efforts. On May 27, the county received $12.2 million from the sale of tax anticipation notes to be used on both the Gonzales County Annex and the Randle-Rather building, with $1.2 million set aside for the latter.

Should the county use less of the money to renovate the annex building, it legally can funnel any remainder to be used on the Randle Rather building without penalty, Duke added.

Duke also said selective demolition had been completed inside the annex building and that new support walls would soon be added with the old walls being taken down once the county received its tax note revenue.