Overview
- Workers discovered severely bent interior columns and sagging floors at the former Pfizer building last week, forcing multi-block evacuations and warnings of a possible collapse.
- By July 9 crews installed emergency shoring and thicker steel supports and the Department of Buildings declared the tower provisionally stable while a partial vacate order remains in effect.
- The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the city’s Department of Investigation have opened criminal inquiries and the DOB has started forensic reviews into the cause of the buckling.
- City inspectors are conducting enforcement sweeps at other construction sites connected to the same developer and consultants, increasing scrutiny of MetroLoft, GACE Consulting Engineers, and Domani Inspection Services.
- MetroLoft says it will fully rebuild the damaged section even as it faces a separate more-than-$30 million lawsuit over defects at 443 Greenwich and continues to pursue a new conversion at 1 Whitehall Street.