Portuguese Cultural Center Closed

The Portuguese Cultural Center, one of Danbury’s premier banquet and reception centers, closed Thursday because of roof problems that may have been caused by the snow.

The center, which is booked months and even years ahead for weddings and other events has canceled bookings through September to investigate and repair the problem.

“We’re doing our best to shift people to other caterers,” said Tony Fernandes, president of the center. City Building Official Leo Null and Fernandes said their main concern was keeping people safe.

“I closed the building. We can’t take any chances,” Null said.

The Portuguese Cultural Center was built by donations and many volunteers in 1998 after the merger of the Sons of Portugal, a club founded in 1924, with the Portuguese American Club, founded in 1938. Both clubs had halls on Liberty Street. The clubs merged and built the center on Sand Pit Hill Road, using contractors and workers from the Portuguese community of Danbury and in neighboring towns and cities.

In addition to the ballroom, the center includes a full gym, a cardio-vascular and weight room, a library, a bar, a restaurant and a soccer field on one side. It also includes club rooms and other offices. The club has about 900 members.

"We'll survive the financial thing," said Danbury Attorney Rute Mendes, of the law firm of Ventura, Ribeiro & Smith, who is the club's vice president. "We have the right insurance for that. The real issue is for the first time in nearly 100 years there isn't a place to go to meet friends. Our second home is closed. The center is our community."

The roof problem was discovered when people noticed a crack that appeared in a roof truss over the main ballroom floor last Thursday. Fernandes called an engineer and the city Building Department immediately, Null said.

“It’s a failed truss,” Null said. “We’re not sure if it was the snow or some other cause.”

Workers immediately shoveled off the roof and Fernandes said they discovered damage under the three feet of snow and ice on the roof.

The center is removing its air conditioning units from the roof either on Thursday or Friday. The center’s insurance company has asked that all the ceiling tiles in the main ballroom be removed this week to give everyone a better view of the trusses and roof up above.

Fernandes described the wooden trusses as beams manufactured by laminating together numerous pieces of long, wide one-inch-thick wood. The trusses run the length and width of the 80-foot ballroom to hold up the ceiling and roof.

Null said he would not decide what caused the problem before he heard back from the engineer studying the roof. Null said with the engineering report in hand, it will be possible to look at the building’s design, to see what was built and see what the conditions are today to figure out what went wrong.