Partial Collapse Spurs Extra Inspections

(Updated Friday 4:21 with Spinnaker statement) The city’s cracking down on the construction crew at Audubon Street after a wall collapse that, by luck, managed not to kill anyone.

City Building Official Jim Turcio said Thursday that he is sending six inspectors every Wednesday to the under-construction Audubon Square project at Audubon, State, Grove, and Orange streets to do separate plumbing/mechanical, electrical, and building code inspections.

If the project fails those inspections, he will shut down the project for a full week until the problems are fixed, Turcio said.

“This is baseball season,” he said. ​“Three strikes, you’re out.”

Turcio acted a day after a 20-foot wall collapsed and tumbled to street level amid high winds.

The partial collapse took place at 6:21 p.m. Wednesday. The construction crew had gone home; no pedestrians were on the street. A security guard was, luckily, 10 feet away from where the debris landed, Turcio said. ​“It would have killed him” if he were closer.

Turcio met with a representative of the general contractor on the project, A. Pappajohn Co. of Norwalk, Thursday morning. He ordered work stopped on the portion of the project where the partial collapse occurred — by the corner of Audubon and State —until a reinspection on Monday. Workers were busy there Thursday afternoon; Turcio said they are allowed to work cleaning up the site. Regular work continued on the other portions of the project.

Turcio also discussed broader concerns about the project.

Turcio said the fast-rising project has failed six framing inspections, two plumbing inspections, and three mechanical/plumbing inspections since Oct. 23. That’s a lot. And that’s why he took the unusual step of instituting the weekly triple inspections, he said.

Usually the city sends inspectors at the request of contractors to sign off on various stages of a project.

A. Pappajohn, which has been hired for the project by Norwalk-based developer Spinnaker Real Estate, will have to wait once a week for those sign-offs from the 1 – 3:30 p.m. Wednesday inspections, and then another week to resume work if they fail.

The city tried this tactic once before, a decade ago, when early problems were arising at the construction of the 360 State St. apartment tower, Turcio said. He said the tactic worked.

“You know you’re going to have inspectors that week. Get it all right,” Turcio said.

Spinnaker is building 269 apartments, up to 5,000 square feet of stores, and a 716-space garage (hidden in the middle of the complex) atop the former parking lot at the Audubon, State, Grove, and Orange ​“superblock,” created during Urban Renewal days to promote large developments. Turcio said he fears the developer is pushing the work ahead too fast.

A call to A. Pappajohn Co. for comment was referred to John Simonelli, who’s responsible for the New Haven project. He did not return requests for comment by the time this story was published.

Update: Spinnaker CEO Clay Fowler released the following statement Friday afternoon: ​“Due to unusually high wind gusts on Wednesday, April 3, 2019, a small section of exterior wall framing was dislodged from its bracing and fell to the ground within the fenced area of the construction site. The incident occurred after work hours and fortunately, no one was in the vicinity. We want to thank the City’s Building Department, Fire Department, and Police Department for their prompt response and assistance in clearing and re-securing the site. We subsequently met with the City’s building officials and have implemented additional measures to ensure that this type of incident doesn’t happen again. As always, we will cooperate with the City as we continue the construction phase of the signature mixed-use development in New Haven. “

Fire Chief John Alston Jr. said Thursday he has concerns about the lightweight design of the project. Not only might that have made it more vulnerable to the partial collapse Wednesday, he said; it will also make it harder to fight potential fires there once the complex is occupied.

Above the first-floor commercial space, built on a concrete foundation, ​“the residential space is lightweight steel and lightweight timber. So it has the tensile strength. However, because of the voids that it creates, it allows for more rapid smoke and fire travel,” Alston said. ​“In the fire service we’re always concerned with lightweight construction. It has been around for a while. We’re seeing an increase in the Northeast.”

An earlier version of this story follows:

Wind Topples Audubon Square Walls

Two large sections of wooden inner walls fell from the third-story of the Audubon Square construction site due to high winds.

The wall sections fell at 6:21 p.m. Wednesday onto Audubon Street near the intersection of State Street according to city Fire Chief John Alston, who was on the scene with 24 fellow firefighters, city Building Official Jim Turcio, city emergency management chief Rick Fontana, and a host of EMTs and curious passerby.

Alston said that no one was hurt. A wrought-iron fence along Audubon Street caught the toppled wall sections, keeping the splintered wood largely clear from the sidewalk. Workers on the job had gone home.

Turcio said he has issued an immediate stop work to Spinnaker Real Estate, the Norwalk-based developer that is building the 269-unit mini city atop a former parking lot bounded by Audubon, State, Grove, and Orange streets. He said he has called a meeting with Spinnaker and its contractor for the project to meet with building department officials first thing tomorrow morning at City Hall.

“We have folks headed there now to clean up and remedy the situation.” Spinnaker principal Clay Fowler reported an hour after the collapse.

Alston explained that the pre-fabricated building is composed of many lightweight materials. High winds in the area knocked loose a third-story inner wall near the Audubon-State intersection, sending two large sections of wood toppling to the ground, he said.

Firefighters on site searched the area to confirm no one was hurt, tested the concrete to make sure it was secure, and then started gathering and securing all the loose construction materials blown about the third-story construction site due to the high wind.

The firefighters were lashing together the materials and dragging them to one of the building’s hallways to keep them protected from the wind.

“We’re grateful nobody was hurt,” Alston said.