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New York City officials told developers this week to pause some construction at a high-rise office building in Midtown Manhattan over structural issues at the building, which is being converted to apartments.
Inspectors with the Department of Buildings discovered on Tuesday that pieces of some steel columns at 750 Third Avenue were welded together, which “potentially weren’t shown on the approved plans filed with the department,” said Andrew Rudansky, a department spokesman.
When asked to provide documentation about the welding, the contractor on site did not, Mr. Rudansky said.
The city then directed the developers to “stop all structural steel work” on the ninth floor and above, according to the order. The order, which is dated July 28, also directed the contractor to provide an “engineer structural stability report” to the city before work can continue. The building is at least 30 stories tall.
Mr. Rudansky, said there was no danger to the public, no orders to evacuate and no “structural distress.”
A spokesman for the developer, SL Green, said that the firm noticed the issue after initial preparation work for the project was done. The issues were in columns that already existed in the building, according to SL Green, and the firm had been working to update its conversion plans.
The spokesman said there were “no structural issues with the building.” SL Green said it had already sought to get the order rescinded.
The building is at least the third office-conversion project totally or partially shut down by the city since July 7. (The Buildings Department issues some 7,000 stop work orders every year.) On that day, two steel columns buckled at a large project on 42nd Street at the site of the old Pfizer building. It led to fears of a collapse and the evacuation of thousands.
That incident rattled confidence in conversion projects, which have been lauded by public officials and the real estate industry as clever ways to repurpose old buildings and address the city’s housing shortage. Inspectors with the Buildings Department have been conducting sweeps at conversion sites in the aftermath of the incident at the old Pfizer building at 235 East 42nd Street to ensure other projects do not have serious problems.
Last week, they shut down work completely at a building in Lower Manhattan, 222 Broadway, over issues with a horizontal concrete beam on the roof that had cracked and been repaired. Work remained on hold there on Wednesday.
A spokesman for the project in Lower Manhattan, James Yolles, said “at no point during construction has the building’s stability been compromised.”
The Buildings Department also partially shut down work at 77 Water Street over issues they found during an inspection on July 11, including equipment being used without proper certification. The developer on the project, Vanbarton, did not respond to requests for comment. Work was allowed to resume a few days later.
Originally built in 1957, the building at 750 Third Avenue is being converted into 639 residential units, according to a permit filed on April 8. There had been no violations recorded by the Buildings Departments until the partial stop work order on Tuesday.
The contractor on the conversion, New Line Structures, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
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The building on Third Avenue is at least the third office-conversion project totally or partially shut down by the city since July 7.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Young Suh, the director and chief engineer of Alan Margolin & Associates, an inspection firm, was listed on Buildings Department records as a third-party inspector responsible for ensuring structural work was conducted properly. When reached by phone Wednesday afternoon, he declined to comment and said he was unaware of any stop-work order.
Alfredo Amaro, 31, a welder on the project, said in an interview at the construction site on Wednesday that he had been on the 11th floor on Tuesday afternoon, reinforcing columns, when his foreman told his team to stop working. He said that the foreman told him that there was a “paperwork issue,” and the team had to stop welding.
“They were just making sure everything is in order,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.
He said he was told Buildings Department inspectors would return to the building on Thursday and would most likely clear the workers to continue their jobs on the higher floors. He had seen inspectors at the site three times this week, he added, in the aftermath of the Pfizer building incident.
“They’re doing their job now,” he said.
When asked if he feared that the building was unstable, he shook his head to indicate he did not.
“I’m the guy welding the plates,” he said.
Raul Castellano, 31, who was working to fireproof the development, continued his work on Wednesday on higher floors, saying nobody told him to avoid them. But he did notice there were no sheet rock layers, carpenters or welders on the floors above the ninth.
“It was weird because we see them every day,” he said.
Hurubie Meko, Caitlyn Freeman and Edison Wu contributed reporting.
Mihir Zaveri covers housing in the New York City region for The Times.
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