New London — The owner of the public parking garage on Governor Winthrop Boulevard filed for a building permit Tuesday for work the city says was completed more than a year ago without one.

City Building Official Kirk Kripas, after realizing no permit was on file, asked garage owner William Cornish to file retroactively for the permit with the accompanying construction plans to ensure the safety of the garage.

He said Cornish is to hire a structural engineer to not only ensure the work was completed to specifications but to examine the integrity of the entire structure.

Kripas said there is no indication the garage is unsafe but the city will provide a “second set of eyes,” with a follow-up inspection of its own to make sure no other work was done without permits.

“I want engineers to assess everything he did to make sure everything is structurally sound — the entire garage,” Kripas said.

He has the authority to condemn the garage, should an inspection turn up any safety concerns.

Cornish said the missing permit was an apparent oversight by the contractor he hired several years ago to replace dozens of wooden columns with steel columns at a cost of more than $50,000.

He said he is hiring E2 Engineers of New London to perform the engineering work as soon as possible.

The scrutiny of the garage comes in the wake of an opinion column in The Day questioning safety of the structure.

The fire inspector visited the garage on Monday to perform an inspection and issued Cornish an abatement order to repair a stand pipe with a broken fitting.

In the event of a fire, stand pipes carry water into the garage when they are connected to fire hoses.

Cornish said The Day’s column has so far cost him about $1,900 a month in revenues.

The 30 employees of the downtown branch of the post office who parked in Cornish’s garage moved to the city-owned parking garage on Water Street a day after the column appeared in The Day.

A spokeswoman for the post office confirmed the move out of the garage but declined any comment on the reason.

Cornish purchased the garage from the city for $206,000 in 2006. The last major study commissioned by the city dates back to 2002, when Desman Associates reported the garage to be in poor condition, suggesting an investment of millions of dollars for repairs needed to prevent further deterioration of the structure.

After Cornish purchased the garage, former building official Jack Cipriano ordered that the garage undergo a structural and safety evaluation, according to reports by The Day at the time.

Cornish hired The Winthrop Group of Gales Ferry, who reported issues that needed to be addressed but that there was no danger of collapse nor problems on the scale of the previous report.

Some of the problems listed, according to a Day report at the time, included beams damaged due to water penetration and issues with the temporary wooden support beams that had been in place since 1995.

Cornish said he’s addressed the issues and expects the upcoming report from the engineer will confirm his contention the garage may need some cosmetic fixes but is not in need of any major structural repairs.

“Chipped concrete and leaks do not add up to a safety issue,” he said.

Cornish said he bought the building as an investment and, aside from $25,000 in annual taxes, has spent about $150,000 on the garage.

While it doesn’t pay for itself now, Cornish said, “I’m positive that museum’s going to come, and we’re going to do OK,” a reference to plans for the National Coast Guard Museum in the downtown area.

g.smith@theday.com