Jack Chen would welcome a visit from a New York City buildings inspector.
Earlier this month, a major structural failure at a high-rise office complex in Midtown that's being converted into apartments by a company called MetroLoft prompted the city's Department of Buildings to conduct a safety inspection sweep at dozens of other sites across the five boroughs.
Chen's 36-story building was converted into apartments by MetroLoft last year, but still has yet to be inspected as part of the city’s enforcement blitz, according to city records.
“It would be comforting knowing they just took a look,” Chen said of the tower at 55 Broad St., the former headquarters of financial giant Goldman Sachs, where he rents a unit. “ It's actually kind of worrying.”
On July 7, two structural columns buckled on the 21st floor of the former Pfizer headquarters on 42nd Street now owned by MetroLoft. City officials said their inspection sweeps would target other buildings connected to companies involved in the project. But a Gothamist review of inspection data shows the agency has only examined 14 out of 20 other MetroLoft projects listed on the firm’s website or recently purchased by the company, a few still under construction. And that's left some feeling uneasy.
“I would hope that they at least take a look into it,” said Nick Bueno, a Miami resident visiting family on the sixth floor of another MetroLoft office-to-residential conversion at 20 Broad St., a 29-story luxury complex. “ I think it's important.”
Bueno said an inspection would give him peace of mind about “the protection of my family and the structural integrity of the building.”
Department of Buildings spokesperson Andrew Rudansky declined to say why inspectors targeted the majority of the MetroLoft projects but not others, including the two properties on Broad Street.
“To protect the integrity of our ongoing investigation into the structural failure at 235 East 42nd St. and the related safety sweeps, we are not providing additional information about its targets or scope at this time,” he said in a written statement. “DOB's investigation is ongoing.”
The inspections at the other MetroLoft projects did not uncover specific problems or result in violations, department records show.
A MetroLoft spokesperson would not comment when asked about the company’s communication with the buildings department or why inspectors had not visited some of its projects.
Structural engineer Abi Aghayere, a professor at Drexel University, said he was surprised the Department of Buildings has not visited each MetroLoft building in the wake of the structural failure at one of its projects.
“Typically in a situation like this you want to do your due diligence and check each one,” Aghayere said. “The safe thing would be to check them all.”
Other residents at 20 Broad St. were more sanguine.
Film producer Sam Mannetti, 32, said he has lived in the building for the past six years and finds it well-run.
“They keep it in good order,” Mannetti said. “They’re quick to fix things.”
Software engineer Star Olaojo said she also feels comfortable living in her 12th floor unit with or without another building inspection.
“I think the reason why they haven’t done inspections is that this building has been here for a long time, so they’re already sure of it,” Olaojo said. “I’m feeling safe.”
MetroLoft no longer owns the building after nearly defaulting on its mortgage loan in 2024. Property records show the firm transferred the 533-unit luxury complex later that year to another entity called 20 Broad Street Pledgor LLC, which listed its address as the office of brokerage Cushman & Wakefield.
Property management firm Greystar runs the building and declined to comment. Greystar spokesperson Andrea Davis said she would pass along an inquiry to the owner.
The entrance to 20 Broad St. in Manhattan.
A 25-story, century-old tower at 67 Wall St., is among the MetroLoft projects that have faced additional scrutiny, according to city data. The former headquarters of Munson Shipping Lines was converted into 331 luxury apartments in 2006.
Buildings officials inspected the property on July 14 and attached a note on the agency website indicating that the visit was “Re: 235 East 42nd Street Sweep.” There, they encountered workers outfitting the first-floor for a new commercial tenant but no structural work being completed, according to a description of the inspection.
On the same day, inspectors visited a 1,320-unit apartment complex at 25 Water St. that formerly housed the offices of the New York Daily News and JPMorgan Chase. A day earlier, they checked in on another office building being converted to new housing at 1 Whitehall St. that the company purchased the same week as the Midtown debacle. In both instances, they recorded “no unsafe conditions.”
City inspectors have also reviewed projects handled by other companies involved in the Pfizer building conversion, including Domani Special Inspections, a safety inspection outfit tasked with reviewing structural steel and welds, and Barone Steel Fabricators. a steel fabrication and installation firm contracted to work on the project, as Gothamist previously reported.
Building inspectors visited at least eight projects handled by Barone Steel as part of its citywide sweeps blitz and issued an order to “stop all steel” work at a construction site in Greenwich Village where workers are transforming a parking garage into a seven-story housing complex. Rudansky, the building department spokesperson, said the type of steel being used on the project was different from what had been called for in the architect’s plans. Barone did not respond to requests for comment.
The Department of Buildings visited at least six MetroLoft project sites where the firm Domani Special Inspections was contracted to perform safety reviews, according to agency records. Domani has faced scrutiny in the wake of the Midtown collapse for past errors recorded by the buildings department, and for the checkered history of its founder. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
But department officials did not visit at least three other MetroLoft projects that had previously contracted with Domani – including 20 Broad St. and 55 Broad St. — in the wake of the East 42nd Street incident, records show.
The Department of Buildings has yet to release the exact cause of the structural failure in Midtown three weeks ago. The two buckled columns sat beneath the weight of a 14-story expansion of the 66-year-old office tower. The project’s structural engineer, Chris Behan, told Gothamist that steel reinforcing was never added to the columns, despite plans that called for it.
An initial note in the Department of Building’s assessment that has since been deleted from the agency’s website also attributed the problem to a lack of reinforcement.
Buildings officials conducted an additional inspection at the former Pfizer building at 235 East 42nd St. on July 20, just under two weeks after the near-collapse. The agency also halted work and ordered a construction safety enforcement audit for an adjacent MetroLoft property at 219 East 42nd St., according to buildings department records.
MetroLoft is redeveloping the two office buildings into roughly 1,600 new apartments, making it the largest office-to-housing conversion in city history by its most prolific office-to-housing conversion specialist.
