The structural concerns that led New York City officials to shut down a Midtown Manhattan high-rise and evacuate surrounding buildings are “very small,” said Nathan Berman, the chief executive officer of Metro Loft, which is leading the project to convert the historic Pfizer building into apartments.
Two columns in the northwest corner of the building at 235 East 42nd Street hadn’t been adequately reinforced, he said, causing the supports to buckle and the floor to sag. By midafternoon, city inspectors and the building’s contractor had entered the building to determine whether it was safe to begin shoring efforts.
The events will set back the timeline for Metro Loft and co-developer David Werner Real Estate Investments, which planned to open the building to tenants this year. The project, with roughly 1,600 apartments, a rooftop pool and a fitness center, has been a leading example of the efforts to repurpose fallow office space for residential use.
People are smart enough to understand that this is something that’s happening during construction,” he said in an interview. “Construction mishaps happen regularly. Those are risks of construction, ground up or conversion.”
The developer reiterated that “at no time was the building at risk of collapsing,” nor did anything fall from the building.
Metro Loft will work closely with the New York City building department to see whether the contractors and subcontractors followed all of the approved plans, Berman said. “We will investigate to make sure that the reinforcement that was required in places was in fact placed in the right place, in the right amount,” he said. “Once that’s done, we can basically start correcting.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the Fire Department of New York closed streets from 40th to 45th between First and Third Avenues and evacuated several nearby buildings.
“It was maybe a lot of caution but that’s a good thing,” Berman said, adding that Metro Loft is “very appreciative of the city acting as quickly as they have and being as proactive as they were. If we had a real problem at the building, this would have been a very important step, and they wisely took it.”
Last year, Madison Realty Capital provided $720 million for the project, which it said was the largest-ever loan of its kind. Berman says the incident will not impact the loan. “We are ahead of schedule in the building anyways,” he said. A spokesperson for Madison Realty didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Metro Loft has become one of New York’s biggest developers of office-to-residential conversions, including the completed conversion of former JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. offices downtown. Its current projects also include conversions of 675 Third Ave. and 111 Wall St.
