Credit: Nick Denny on Flickr

The McGuire Apartments, a 25-story building at 2nd Avenue and Wall Street that was completed only nine years ago, must be vacated by the end of the year and demolished due to irreparable safety problems:

mcguire_apts_Nick-Denny_on_flickr.jpg

  • Nick Denny on Flickr

The building owner has informed officials at the Seattle Department of Planning and Development (DPD) of the extensive construction defects, which principally involve corrosion of post-tensioned cables and concrete material and reinforcement placement deficiencies. The post-tensioned cables are corroding because the ends of the cables were not properly protected with corrosion preventative paint, and the grout used to seal the cable ends and anchors was not the specified non-shrink grout and was defectively installed. As a result, water leaked into these areas and caused the cable ends to rust, and then corrode. In addition, reinforcement placement in the building’s exterior frame is defective, resulting in cracking and spalling of concrete, as well as structural impairment.

Well shit.

Tip from Cornichon at Seattlest

62 replies on “New 25-Story Building in Belltown to Be Demolished”

  3. How do you even take down something like this – 25 stories tall & in the middle of a city – without damaging anything else? I bet there’s some really unhappy neighbors, too.

  4. Good call – better now than in the big quake.

    All the terms refer to poorly done re- inforced concrete.

    The big hook is in some insurance companies bank – this is big time liability time, and some big payoffs from insurance companies…

    will be interesting to follow.

  7. .. Harbor properties – that is the Wheyhauser (sp) land company …. so a deep pocket for payoffs and legal clout and all the rest.

    Some contractor duped them … big time.

    The plot thickens – elite players in this state.

  8. Wow. That will get interesting. I expect some building inspectors (from the time of construction) will be on the hot seat too.

    I didn’t realize post-tensioning was used in buildings for commercial and residential occupancy; assumed it was for concrete utility poles, parking garages, bridges, etc. Is it supposed to reduce the amount of rebar that would otherwise be needed?

    At least this was caught before being brought down by an earthquake (not that it couldn’t still happen prior to demolition). They’ll probably be looking at all similar buildings, and everything that contractor ever did.

  9. This is my general concern with a lot of new construction in Seattle — it’s not so much that I’m attached to the old buildings as that the new buildings are so poorly built. This applies to everything from McMansions to the Bellagio to this fuckup in Belltown.

    There are historical precedents for explosive real estate development, leading to lower construction standards, and the results of such lower standards. The Great London Fire of 1666 is probably the best-known example of a widespread calamity resulting from economic pressure to alter building standards, but the Magnolia Bluff collapse in Seattle is another good example — most of the land in that area was declare unbuildable until the real estate boom from the World’s Fair put pressure on city officials to change the standard for some of the green belts.

    I think a big earthquake will probably be the thing that leaves us all looking back on this period of development and regretting it, but maybe it’ll be something else.

  12. meks – Yes I believe that is correct. “McGuire” is Peter J. McGuire who was a principle founder of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners in 1881.

    So much for value engineering.

  13. What a waste, and how unfortunate to loose this density. Hopefully it’s not a hole/parking lot wasteland for too long afterwards. Let the lawsuits begin!

  15. Holy shit. My husband and I were all but committed to renting an apartment there last spring. Luckily, the many apparent lies from the rental agent, including (but far from limited to) “all the construction to ‘fix the facade’ will be done by early summer” squashed that.

    For the record, the same in-house sales guy tried to explain away construction on a brand new building as “salt air from the sound corrodes concrete.”

  18. @13 *lose*

    Sorry. I can understand the “there/they’re/their” and the “you’re/your” confusion, but really, “lose/loose”?

    Does anyone ever confuse “nose/noose”?

  23. Where is your copy editor, Dominic? It’s “Well, shit,” unless you are referring to feces in a deep hole used for drinking water.

  24. Bummer about the inefficiency and all, but a day off work, cooler full of Dale’s, lawn chairs, flashmob dance party/controlled demolition, maybe some bocci afterward…can’t wait.

  25. @18: I’ve been seeing the “lose”/”loose” problem a lot on here lately. A corrosion of the collective vocabulary to match the corrosion of the poorly build “boom buildings.”

    Still not as grating to me as “weary”/”wary”/”leery” confusion.

  29. “Well shit” is perfectly good casual written usage, since it reproduces what it sounds like in real life. Do you say “Well (pause) shit?” No.

    Grout? They use grout in a building like that? Good lord.

  30. d.p., congrats on your ability to manifest symptoms of every one of Theodore Millon’s five compulsive personality subtypes while typing just fifty-two words.

  31. @8: Use of PT concrete is fairly common for highrise residential & commercial buildings. It usually allows for the most efficient (i.e thinnest) floor structure, meaning you can pack more floors into your height limit and minimize the concrete and (especially) rebar cost…typical developer math

  32. A friend of a friend of mine (I know that is a completely reliable source /s) called today and said that he was moving out ASAP, and he lives in this building. I heard this all second hand (again that pretty much makes me an expert with respect to this building). Anyway, as a renter he is being compensated for moving out. Not going to mention how much compensation, but lets just say I wish I lived there.

  33. It’s probably worth copy-editing my own complaints about word usage…

    Dear me:

    I thank me for submitting my manuscript; however, I regret to inform myself that it does not meet my needs at the present time.

    Sincerely,

    I

  34. Second Avenue and Wall must be cursed. Belltown Court – before and after it went condo – had leaky windows even after several fix-its and a year-and-a-half wrapped up in Saran. I’d heard it had fallen off its foundation, too. The company that actually did the construction went into bankruptcy.

    The property was owned by the Carpenters’ Union as was the building that was on it before it was demolished to make way for the Maguire.

  35. But their website promises vibrant urban living in a resort-like atmosphere, and features stock photos of attractive people, and wine glasses full of what undoubtedly is some amusing little pinot. How could that be unsafe?

    But if we must take it down, I say take it down Vegas Style! We wouldn’t be able to pull it off, of course, but it would be fun to see Seattle’s attempt to do something with a little pizazz.

  36. @25 You do know that many of us intentionally do things like that just to piss people like you off because grammar nazis are quite funny when there mad.

  39. Jesus, @30. I saw a typo in my own post, and I decided to fix it rather than wait for people like you to point out the misused word in a post about misusued words. Instead, you mock the correction. Congrats on your ability to prove you’re a dick in a single sentence.

    Meanwhile, @36, when did I say anything about grammar? Are you actually defending someone who suggests that Belltown “looses” (frees from restraint) rather than “loses” (fails to keep, sustain, or maintain) density when its buildings collapse? Or someone who insists that he is “weary” (exhaused) when he wants to say that he is “wary” (cautious)?

    Grammar involves properly setting a word in its context. Choosing the wrong word entirely is a whole different pile of stupidity.

    Sorry if I expected anything more in a city whose buildings fall down eight years after being built. (Or a city that a year ago still believed itself a triumphant exception to the real estate bubble!)

  42. @40: Good eye. Not sure how “misusued” would even be pronounced, never mind what it would mean.

    Some of the the so-called “neighborhood blogs” allow after-the-fact comment editing. I really like that feature.

  43. Belltown Court was a Hewitt building as well. sounds like someone wasn’t paid to do enough construction administration on the project…
    and it was done in concrete because the concrete formwork is all framed in wood — ie, jobs for carpenters on the project. typically a building like this would be steel framed with post-tensioned slabs.
    McCarthy is generally pretty good; I’ve worked with them on a lot of projects in the NW.

  45. @34, I remember that. Wasn’t water getting in between the exterior skin and the structure at the top, causing the skin to separate all the way down? It sounded like a nightmare.

    Who remembers the construction disaster that was the Newmark before they fixed it? Shoddy construction all over this city.

  48. @44: You’re right, a subtile but critical distinction between pre- and post-tensioned concrete! You can see how use of the wrong grout (non-shrink vs one that does shrink as it cures) would be potentially (and apparently) catastophic

  49. Just about every building in Seattle that was clad with fake stucco (EIFS) had to be redone because it wasn’t done correctly (or couldn’t be done correctly, as was the case with other exteriors like LP siding). I had a friend who owned a 300 sq ft condo In Belltown who was charged $30K as her share of the HOA expenses for her building. Obviously no one learned from those experiences.

  50. This building is owned by Local 131 Carpenter’s union which was more than likely built by union tradesmen.

    So much for union quality…..looks like the GM of high rises.

Comments are closed.