The previous Pfizer headquarters at 235 East forty second Road in Midtown Manhattan, the place structural columns buckled on its twenty first ground this morning resulting in issues of collapse, generated seven building security violations in 2025 with greater than $32,000 in penalties.
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 at present’s evacuation of staff.
“As we await the arrival of supplies that may 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 complicated scenario.”
“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 verify that the affected space is a small part of one of many two buildings on this web site. Because the FDNY spokesperson famous, the whole constructing itself will not be liable to collapse.”
Most not too long ago, 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 damage, which carried a penalty of $10,000. The seven DOB violations final yr had been every resolved by the LLC using normal contractor Robert Travis, with all however one of many building security infractions labeled 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 stage floor, carrying with it a $10,000 penalty.
Data present that no cash was paid for any of the violations final yr, however that certificates of correction had been accepted.
“It is a constructing that was going via an office-[to]-residential conversion — it went via plan evaluate and has gone via an in depth, exhaustive evaluate with DOB over the previous two years,” stated DOB Commissioner Ahmed Tigani on the press convention. “What is going on now could be an investigation of what’s the reason for 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 piece 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 criticism identified “unlicensed staff” and “unsafe circumstances” on the web site of the office-to-residential conversion.
“Right now a big merchandise fell and broke via 5 flooring and virtually hit somebody,” the criticism stated. “There are fuel machines with out correct air flow. These are hazardous circumstances for the employees.”
The complaint additionally talked about sparks hitting staff on account of lack of security blankets, unlicensed welders and chipping gun utilization with out safety from falling particles, inflicting items of concrete to fall continuously 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 scale back allowing timelines for conversion initiatives by roughly 5 months.
There have been a minimum of 17,432 rental and condominium items that introduced plans between 2020 and March 2025 for conversions from workplace area throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn, in line with a report by former Comptroller Brad Lander.
The second largest deliberate office-to-residential conversion at 111 Wall Road generated 10 building security violations for the reason that starting of 2025, whereas one other at 25 Water Road had eight such violations throughout the identical interval.
Learn extra
David Werner, Metro Loft’s Pfizer HQ at risk of collapse
Work stops at David Werner, Metro Loft’s Pfizer HQ conversion over suspected fire
Nathan Berman plots largest office-to-resi conversion with former Pfizer HQ
