New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
City keeps eye on building dangers
NEW HAVEN — City Building Official Jim Turcio couldn’t help but be shocked — and personally moved — when he saw the footage of the Surfside, Fla., condominium complex crumbling to the ground in the middle of the night.
“It weighed heavy on me,” said Turcio, who, like building officials and inspectors all across the country, spends his days
and nights working to prevent such disasters on his watch.
As of Tuesday, the 13th day of searching for survivors and bodies, the June 24 collapse of the Champlain Towers South had officially claimed 32 lives. Another 113 people remained unaccounted for.
“Hopefully, it would never happen up here,” Turcio said.
But while Turcio does not think there are inhabited buildings in New Haven where that kind of thing could happen, he does keep a close eye on several empty buildings in the city, including one where where bricks recently fell to the sidewalk.
His greatest concern locally are several degraded buildings that already are vacant.
Turcio said his primary concerns are three buildings that have not been condemned but are being closely watched by him and his staff:
— The long-vacant former New Haven Clock Co. factory at 133 Hamilton St., a portion of which once was home to Scores, a strip club.
— A vacant industrial building, most recently home to the Peter Chapman Personal Training Center and once home to the Devil’s Gear Bike Shop, at 433 Chapel St. between Hamilton and Wallace streets.
— The former Bigelow Boiler Co. building at 198 River St. in Fair Haven, a site owned by the city.
A crew from G.L. Capasso structural restoration contractors was out working at 433 Chapel St. Friday to install scaffolding for a “sidewalk shed” to protect anyone walking by after the city received reports of falling bricks, Turcio said.
On a visit to the site Friday, he pointed out two pitted areas along the top of the six-story building from which bricks already had fallen.
“I’m by there four days a week,” Turcio said. “I go by every single day.
“You may see more of those sheds across the city” in the future, Turcio said.
“If we see a problem, we’re going to act on it.”
The owner of 433 Chapel, La Saraghina LLC, for which the state lists Peter Chapman as the agent, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
A $4 million state Brownfield development loan is in place to help the city remediate the 1.9-acre former clock factory site, which an Oregon-based developer, Reed Realty Group, is looking to convert to the Clock Shop Lofts, a 128-unit apartment complex with ancillary uses for design professionals such as gallery/ exhibition space and a restaurant/coffee shop.
Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli said the project has been “slowed by the pandemic.”
“There’s still some remediation work that they have to complete ... but they have not finalized their financing,” he said.
But in the meantime, the city has to worry about the current condition of the site, Piscitelli said.
Reed Realty Group and its managing partner, Scott Reed, did not immediately return messages left late last week and Tuesday.
An Oct. 7, 2020, inspection at 133 Hamilton St. found that the structure was open to trespass with a collapsed rear brick wall and fence as well as 20 or more abandoned oil drums leaking, threatening public safety and welfare, according to a “Notice Of Unsafe Structure” issued on Oct. 9, 2020 and reissued on July 2, 2021.
A June 29, 2021, inspection at 433 Chapel St. found that “bricks are falling onto sidewalk” and “the facade needs to be repaired and restored to a safe condition,” according to a “Notice Of Unsafe Structure” issued on June 30, 2021.
In New Haven, if there is any indication of severe problems, “We’re going to act,” said Turcio. “If we get an engineers report that the building is sinking, we’re going to take some serious action.”
But does Turcio worry there are other things that officials should be doing here?
“All the time,” he said. “I should take a serious look at all the buildings,” Turcio said.
When something like what happened in Surfside happens anywhere, “You immediately want to doubleand triple-check that the city’s doing everything to make sure that something like that doesn’t happen,” said Mayor Justin Elicker.
“It reminds you of why following the building codes and having building permits and inspection” is important, he said.
In New Haven, “We monitor buildings on a regular basis that are of concern to us. We have a plan for each one of them” and “we intervene quickly to make sure they are” in safe condition, Elicker said.
That said, “I have a lot of confidence in our building inspector. I’ve seen him” and he’s “by the book and conservative when it comes to public safety,” Elicker said. “But as mayor, I pretty much worry about everything.”
Several other buildings that have been of concern in the city aren’t of the same level of concern as the three properties on the watch list, said Turcio.
A wooden building on Whalley Avenue that was demolished earlier last week “was more of a blighted condition and a trespass” hazard, but was not in danger of collapsing, Turcio said.
A partially-collapsed 163-year-old, pre-Civil War multifamily house in Wooster Square “is structurally stable now, under an engineer’s watch, Turcio said.
Structural issues at 66 Norton St., which the city condemned and evacuated about 80 residents from in February 2018, have been addressed and it is almost ready for people to move back in, Turcio said.
“The structural issues have been completely fixed” and “we’re working on the back fire escape,” he said.