The developer behind the Midtown Manhattan skyscraper that suffered structural damage on Tuesday said faulty column supports carrying too much weight were to blame and the building has now been stabilized.
Nathan Berman, founder and managing principal of MetroLoft, told CNN his company added roughly 18,000 square feet to 15 upper floors, and the additional load caused two columns to bend. Those floors then shifted and sagged, some as much as four inches, he said.
The columns bent “essentially from not having been properly reinforced or having been missed in the reinforcement process.” Berman said they will determine the exact reason “in due time.”
A “full investigation” into the structural failure at the former Pfizer building will help determine how the failure happened, what led to it and how similar incidents can be avoided in the future, the New York City Department of Buildings said.
The investigation will include reviews of construction documents, interviews with witnesses and a review of any available video and photo evidence from the site, among other things.
Crews have been shoring up the affected floors since Tuesday night, and are expected to finish by Thursday morning, Berman said. The columns and beams in the affected area will be fully replaced once the Buildings Department clears them to do so, he said.
“We are building a premium product and we don’t want any part of this product … not to be at its best,” Berman said. “We do not want to fix something. We’d like to replace it and make it new.”
As for calling it “a typical construction mishap” after the buckling occurred on Tuesday, Berman said he is not trivializing what happened but it shouldn’t be blown out of proportion.
“What I basically meant to say, maybe not so artfully, is that construction mishaps happen,” Berman said. “This was one such mishap that is unfortunate, but this is not so completely unique in the history of construction that it warrants this kind of scrutiny.”
In a statement earlier Wednesday, MetroLoft said the building was never in danger of collapse. Still, Berman said he was “very pleased and grateful” the city took the steps it did to ensure everyone’s safety.
