As winter storm retreats, uptown Charlotte faces hazard from ice falling off buildings

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police shut down an uptown street Monday after reports of ice falling from the Duke Energy Center as a winter storm departed the Carolinas.

Police closed Stonewall Street between Tryon and Church streets and, in a tweet, asked travelers to find an alternate route.

Wells Fargo, which owns the 48-story tower, confirmed that ice was dropping from the building. Warning signs and protective scaffolding were placed over the building’s entrances and exits, spokesman Josh Dunn said.

“When certain conditions occur, ice can fall off the building,” he said.

The tower, which rises over the corner of Tryon and Stonewall, has indeed dropped ice before. A year after the building opened in January 2010, police had to close surrounding streets after ice melting on the building started “coming down in big sheets,” a police officer told The Observer.

The ice was coming from two angled faces at the top of the tower, which resembles a handle, the officer said.

“As temperatures warmed on Tuesday, the building began shedding slivers and sheets of ice that plunged to the ground below,” The Observer wrote on Jan. 12, 2011. “The sound of cracking ice could be heard at street level.”

Wells Fargo told The Observer in 2011 that it had “analyzed and installed measures” meant to keep ice from falling from the building in the original design of the tower. The bank said it would investigate “new issues” from the falling ice that year.

Wells took several steps after that investigation, Dunn said. It installed heaters in the building’s roof basin to keep large sheets of ice from forming, he said. It also installed ice breaks on the tower’s perimeter.

And as this weekend’s storm approach, Dunn said, building managers turned on heaters in the panoramic vista area at the top of the building to shed ice. The building’s energy-efficient design keeps interior warmth from reaching its exterior.

Medic had no reports of injuries Monday, and none were reported during the 2011 episode.

Ice has fallen from high-rises in other cities. Police in Chicago closed streets late last month as melting snow and ice began falling from buildings as the city dug out from a snowstorm, the Chicago Tribune reported.

This story was originally published December 10, 2018 at 4:00 PM.