More security: Cameras, sprays and guards lead to mixed success

Developers in the East Bay — where fires have burned down four unfinished housing projects in the past two years, not counting the two blazes early Tuesday — have learned to be wary.

Some are spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on extra security, cameras and less conventional measures like applying fire-suppressant spray on wood.

City Ventures’ Ice House project, where 55 wood-framed townhome units were charred Tuesday and will have to be demolished and rebuilt, had only one guard on duty at the time, according to Phil Kerr, the CEO of homebuilding at City Ventures. It now has three guards, he said. Multiple security cameras are constantly monitored, which is how the fire was

first seen.

Madison Park Financial Corp, the developer of a partially built housing complex 10 blocks away where another, smaller blaze burned early Tuesday, had hired four guards and paid $60,000 per month on security for its project, but someone still broke in, according to Simon Chen, Madison Park’s chief financial officer. The 124-unit project at 3266 Peralta St. previously had a chain-link fence and black fabric stretching from the ground to the roof of the building, but the fence was replaced by a smaller one as construction neared completion.

“That left us exposed to these kinds of attacks,” said Jim Nuti, vice president of DCI Construction, the general contractor for the project. The fire died on its own without spreading to the vulnerable wood frame.

Authorities are still investigating the causes of both fires. But at the Peralta Street site, Madison Park found an abandoned hammer, match, gas canister and rag in a bathroom.

“I would say that’s suspicious,” Chen said — a sentiment shared by other developers who have seen their construction sites go up in flames.

There were 3,820 U.S. construction site fires resulting in three deaths and $176 million in property losses from 2011 to 2015, according to the National Fire Protection Association. In 2017, two fires in Massachusetts resulted in a combined estimated loss of $140 million.

Some Bay Area developers are investing in a fire-suppressing chemical spray that’s applied as a project is built. M-Fire Suppression Inc. says its spray douses fires before they spread, and it has been used at six projects in Oakland and one each in Walnut Creek, Fremont and San Francisco, according to M-Fire Chairman Steve Conboy. His clients include AvalonBay, one of the country’s largest home builders.

Conboy said preemptively using the spray is effective, because once a fire is set there are few options to douse it.

“Water doesn’t put these fires out. It’s very aggressive,” Conboy said.

Some critics and concrete and steel industry groups have pushed for an alternative to wood, which is the most popular material for mid-rise housing. (Towers use steel and concrete and aren’t vulnerable to fire.)

But Conboy said wood will remain the standard because it’s cheaper and a much more abundant material that’s better for the environment.

“Wood is a renewable, sustainable resource,” he said.

Tuesday’s fire burned down only a portion of the Ice House project site, and the six townhome buildings, with nine to 10 units each, that burned will be rebuilt in around four months, Kerr said.

But large single apartment buildings, with hundreds of apartments, have been delayed for a year or more by fires. In those cases, the entire wood structure containing all the apartments has been destroyed.

Previous cases have been “very different because that’s a single building, because you have to start from scratch,” Kerr said. Still, costs could be in the tens of millions of dollars, and it isn’t clear what insurance will cover.

City Ventures, headquartered in Irvine, builds for-sale, solar-powered townhomes around the state. It is one of the only developers building new for-sale housing in Oakland, where the vast majority of new projects have been rentals.

In general, construction costs across the region are spiking and the additional cost of security could drive prices higher, exacerbating the regional housing crisis.

“Any time you increase the cost for all development in an area, it eventually translates through” to buyers and renters, said Kerr.

“There’s been arson in Oakland in the past,” Kerr said, adding that Ice House’s buildings weren’t hooked up to any power supplies and were empty. “That would all point to arson.”

Still, City Ventures remains committed to building in Oakland and is seeking additional housing sites.

“We’re resolute,” Kerr said. “There’s such a need for housing now.” San Francisco Chronicle staff writers

Michael Cabanatuan and Sarah Ravani contributed to this report.