The previous Pfizer headquarters at 235 East forty second Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, the place structural columns buckled on its twenty first ground this morning resulting in considerations of collapse, generated seven building security violations in 2025 with greater than $32,000 in penalties.
The town’s largest deliberate office-to-residential conversion, led by David Werner and Nathan Berman’s Metro Loft Administration and architect Gensler, had a number of Division of Buildings violations final yr previous right this moment’s evacuation of employees.
“As we await the arrival of supplies that can stabilize the constructing, DOB engineers have been investigating with FDNY drones,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani stated at a press convention. “DOB inspectors and engineers are managing an extremely advanced state of affairs.”
“We’re grateful there have been no accidents, and because the DOB clarified, no particles fell from the constructing,” stated a Metro Loft spokesperson in an announcement. “We need to affirm that the affected space is a small part of one of many two buildings on this web site. Because the FDNY spokesperson famous, your complete constructing itself is just not vulnerable to collapse.”
Most lately, the LLC related to the residential conversion, 235 GC LLC, was dinged in December for failing to inform the DOB of a building incident that resulted in a fatality or harm, which carried a penalty of $10,000. The seven DOB violations final yr had been every resolved by the LLC using basic contractor Robert Travis, with all however one of many building security infractions categorized as instantly hazardous.
In one other violation filed final December, the DOB described an incident the place a employee fell six ft from a ladder that was not on a flat and degree floor, carrying with it a $10,000 penalty.
Information present that no cash was paid for any of the violations final yr, however that certificates of correction had been accepted.
“This can be a constructing that was going by an office-[to]-residential conversion — it went by plan assessment and has gone by an intensive, exhaustive assessment with DOB over the previous two years,” stated DOB Commissioner Ahmed Tigani on the press convention. “What is occurring now’s an investigation of what’s the reason behind why the undermining occurred.”
As a part of the residential conversion, the constructing that previously housed Pfizer’s headquarters was including 11 flooring to a bit beforehand solely 22 tales tall.
Final August, work stopped briefly on the constructing when authorities responded to a suspected hearth reported as “some smoke by a building web site” in a DOB complaint filed by somebody who was “involved for the employees.” Metro Loft denied on the time {that a} hearth had occurred.
In October, one other grievance identified “unlicensed employees” and “unsafe circumstances” on the web site of the office-to-residential conversion.
“As we speak a big merchandise fell and broke by 5 flooring and nearly hit somebody,” the grievance stated. “There are gasoline machines with out correct air flow. These are hazardous circumstances for the employees.”
The complaint additionally talked about sparks hitting employees as a consequence of lack of security blankets, unlicensed welders and chipping gun utilization with out safety from falling particles, inflicting items of concrete to fall continually from above. A number of complaints from the final two years spotlight falling particles.
Workplace-to-residential conversions, a core side of former Mayor Eric Adams’ zoning overhaul Metropolis of Sure for Housing Alternative, have additionally been championed by the Mamdani administration. The mayor’s SPEED task force goals to cut back allowing timelines for conversion initiatives by roughly 5 months.
There have been a minimum of 17,432 rental and rental models that introduced plans between 2020 and March 2025 for conversions from workplace house throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn, based on a report by former Comptroller Brad Lander.
The second largest deliberate office-to-residential conversion at 111 Wall Avenue generated 10 building security violations because the starting of 2025, whereas one other at 25 Water Avenue had eight such violations throughout the identical interval.
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