Sunday, 29 Sep 2024

4 Parking Garages Ordered Evacuated After Deadly Collapse in Manhattan

In the wake of a deadly collapse of a parking garage in Lower Manhattan last week, New York City officials found structural problems at four other garages so dangerous they ordered the buildings at least partially vacated.

At those four garages — two in Manhattan and two in Brooklyn — the city’s Buildings Department found that the structures had “deteriorated to the point where they were now posing an immediate threat to public safety,” said Andrew Rudansky, a spokesman for the department.

The discoveries, he said, came during inspections of garages conducted after the April 18 collapse of a garage on Ann Street in the Financial District in Manhattan that left its manager dead in the rubble and five others injured.

Engineers found that a two-story garage at 2781 Stillwell Avenue in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn was in “severe disrepair,” Mr. Rudansky said. The department issued a “full vacate order” for the entire building and ordered its owners to close for business and immediately retain a professional engineer to compile a structural report, he said.

In a multilevel garage beneath a 25-story apartment building in Battery Park City, engineers found concrete that was “extensively corroded” and “spalled concrete” on the underside of two floor slabs, Mr. Rudansky said.

Spalling is a sign that concrete is deteriorating. It often happens when water seeps into the concrete and corrodes steel bars embedded inside the slab. The corroded steel expands and causes the concrete to crack and crumble, or spall.

Spalling of the concrete in a parking garage was cited as a factor in the 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers condominium complex in Surfside, Fla.

At the Battery Park City garage, at 225 Rector Place, the Buildings Department ordered 60 percent of the structure to be vacated and directed the owners to install a protective pathway for drivers to reach their cars safely in the rest of the garage, Mr. Rudansky said.

He said the department ordered the building’s owners to retain a professional engineer to compile a structural report on the garage, but added that the department’s engineers did not find any reason for the apartments above the garage to be vacated.

While the investigation into the cause of the Ann Street collapse continues, inspectors fanned out to assess the condition of 78 garages across the city. Mr. Rudansky said 17 of those garages were managed by the same company that managed the one that collapsed. The other 61 had previously been cited for serious structural issues that the department’s records showed had not been resolved, he said.

Before last year, owners of parking garages in New York City were not required to have their structures inspected periodically. But under a new local law, garages in Manhattan below 59th Street and on the Upper West Side must hire qualified engineers and file inspection reports before the end of 2023, and every two years after that.

Garages in other parts of the city will also be required to have inspections, but with later deadlines to file their first reports.

Another of the garages that received an order to vacate is beneath an eight-story apartment building at 50 Bayard Street, in the Chinatown neighborhood of Manhattan. Engineers found “numerous severely deteriorated and rusted steel beams, with excessive cracked and spalling concrete piers in various locations throughout the parking structure,” Mr. Rudansky said.

They also found that the required fireproofing materials were missing in various areas, he said. The building’s owners were ordered to vacate the entire garage, as well as part of the cellar. They must also retain a professional engineer and hire a general contractor to immediately provide emergency shoring inside of the building.

The engineers did not find that it was necessary to vacate the apartments.

At a two-story garage in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, at 429 12th Street, engineers found “structurally compromised and extensively corroded slab beams and columns,” Mr. Rudansky said.

They also found that parts of the second-floor slab and vehicle ramp were “deteriorated” and the wooden roof joists on the second floor were in a “state of disrepair.” The department ordered that areas with unsafe conditions be vacated — about 400 square feet of the building. The garage must bring in a professional engineer and a contractor to shore up the “compromised” areas.

A notice of the order to partially vacate, dated April 27, and a sketch showing the unsafe areas were posted on a window of the garage on Friday evening.

Asmaa Elkeurti contributed reporting.

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