Residents are being asked to evacuate their West Cambridge luxury condos due to recently discovered structural issues. The board of trustees of Riverview Condominiums, a 77-unit building at 221 Mount Auburn St. built in 1963, told condo owners they must evacuate due to issues with the building’s concrete slabs.
Emptying the building will let engineers shore up the foundation and “reduce the risk of collapse,” including during possible winter snowfall, “until the building is repaired,” according to a Nov. 4 trustees document.
The problem was discovered last year during a roof construction project, according to city spokesperson Jeremy Warnick. Riverview brought in two sets of construction consultants who verified the issues, after which Cambridge Inspectional Services was looped in.
“This is not a mass emergency building evacuation,” Warnick said. “People can still live there for the near term, but are being asked to leave by property management and board of trustees in the coming weeks so that they can begin the repairs that are needed.”
“They’re voluntarily leaving now on their own,” he added.
Condo owners are responsible for their own relocation and moving costs. On Thursday, the Riverview lobby was busy with moving activity and neighbors chatting about their postevacuation plans. Many people were there to help elderly parents move.
The city doesn’t know the timeline of the repairs, though a resident said he heard repairs would take a year. Property management company Thayer & Associates, which ran an informational meeting Tuesday for tenants, did not speak with media Thursday.
The analysis from the engineering firm describes multiple serious issues discovered since 2023, including “severely misplaced” reinforcement and concrete quality of “consistently low strength,” which result in reduced capacity for the building’s slabs.
Warnick, who is working with the city building commissioner on the process, said Inspectional Services is not used to this kind of problem.
“This is a rare event in the city,” Warnick said.
A stronger
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Some other news sources reporting on this situation mentioned “faulty rebar on the roof, faulty concrete.” This is the first report I’ve noticed which identifies what must be the critical problem: a faulty concrete SLAB on which the entire building sits.
Are there no governmental oversights during construction, particularly in large buildings, to catch this kind of dangerously shoddy work?