According to White Plains Commissioner of Buildings Damon Amadio, the private parking garage at 50 Hale Ave. in the city that experienced a partial collapse of one floor on the morning of Oct. 16 had received permits over the past few years for structural repair work. Amadio said that the cause of the failure that led to the partial collapse is under investigation.
Amadio explained that New York state law requires that owners and operators of parking garages perform structural condition assessments of their facilities on a scheduled basis.
“The condition assessments must be performed by licensed professional engineers that specialize in building structural design and are to include identification of any unsafe conditions,” Amadio said, adding that the City of White Plains does not perform these assessments.
“Garage owners are required to submit a copy of the assessment report describing the findings to the City of White Plains Building Department for review and record,” Amadio said. “The Building Department is not in receipt of an assessment report for this garage. Over the past few years, the owner applied for, and the city issued, building permits for specific structural repair work in the garage.”
On Oct. 15, a portion of the fifth floor of the 14-deck garage collapsed into the fourth floor space, crushing a number of cars. In addition, some cars on the fifth floor received damage. No injuries were reported.
Amadio identified the owner of the garage as 44 South Broadway Owner LLC. The garage is adjacent to the New York Life Westchester One building at 44 South Broadway and an entrance ramp runs alongside the building from South Broadway.
Amadio said that the section of the structure that collapsed was an approximately 1,200-square-feet section of the fifth floor deck. It fell at an angle into the fourth floor space. He said that overnight the owner and property management company Cushman and Wakefield had engineers and contractors at the site installing temporary structural supports in the area where the failure occurred. He said that their work was completed early Thursday morning. Members of the White Pains Fire Department who responded to the scene Wednesday morning had installed temporary supports in sections of the garage where they believed they were needed.
Amado said that the building owner is arranging to have vehicles removed from the garage.
“Ownership of each vehicle will be identified and the owner will be contacted by building management prior to any removals,” Amadio said. “The duration of time required to remove all the vehicles has not been established at this time. ”
Amadio said that the garage is closed to both pedestrian and vehicular traffic until further notice.
White Plains Public Safety Commissioner David Chong said that the first call to police about the incident came at about 9:08 a.m. from a person who was in the garage at the time. Chong said that many other calls followed.
“We are blessed that it wasn’t something more tragic,” Chong said. “If it was at 8:30 in the morning who knows what would have happened when people are coming into work. So, we’re blessed. Everybody was parked and stationed when the collapse happened.”
