It was a Saturday night, and Madalena Goulart had just settled into bed after a long day working as a live-in caretaker when the doorbell rang. Then came a loud knock.
Outside, flashing sirens lit up the street. At her door was a firefighter with a serious look. “Everyone has to leave the house now,” the firefighter said. “The building behind you might collapse.”
Goulart and her neighbors on Clay Street in Santa Clara started packing up their belongings, unsure when or if they’d be allowed to return.
The emergency warning was hard to believe. The building that overshadowed their homes was called “Villa Bella” and had been built less than two years prior. Condos in the building had sold out quickly, some for more than $1 million.
Nearly a month after that nighttime evacuation, some 130 Villa Bella residents remain displaced from units many had only recently moved into. Now, the developer behind the 56-unit complex — its first-ever housing project — faces the community’s ire.
The condo complex opened in 2024. | Source: Kevin V. Nguyen/The StandardBuyer’s remorse
Sunnyvale-based developer Legend USA completed construction of the stark white Mediterranean-style condo complex in 2024, replacing a car dealership at 1850 El Camino Real. The building is close to freeways, and marketing materials touted its amenities and easy commutes to some of Silicon Valley’s largest employers, the South Bay’s unofficial Koreatown (opens in new tab), and Santa Clara University.
But by the time residents moved in, promises of a pristine complex quickly began to unravel. Common areas, like the bike room and community clubhouse, were left unfinished. After heavy rains, patio railings and gates began to rust. More troubling were the leaks that seeped into the street-level parking garage, a structure that supported the homes above.
Because the condos were new, they were covered under the builder’s warranty. Members of the Villa Bella homeowners association repeatedly took their concerns to Legend USA, which also served as the property’s general contractor, thus making it liable for any repairs.
But several residents said their concerns went unanswered for months. In some cases, the developer’s representatives dismissed their concerns or disputed that there were problems at all.
For Anna Nevskaya and Vlad Orlov, who bought a one-bedroom unit for $451,000 to be closer to their jobs at Apple, the experience quickly became a “nightmare.” In Google reviews posted over several months, the duo chronicled leaks, cracked walls, and the appearance of black mold.
The Mediterranean-style building looks pristine on the outside. | Source: Kevin V. Nguyen/The Standard
Inside, residents report there have been constant leaks. | Source: Victor Leong/Google Maps
“These leaks have been ongoing for months, and despite reporting the issue to the builder, no action has been taken,” Orlov wrote a year ago.
Last week, Nevskaya wrote: “It’s disgusting and unhealthy to live here. They don’t care about our safety at all. They just take your money and disappear when the building starts to fall apart.”
Those quality-of-life complaints took on a much more immediate urgency the night of Feb. 28, when multiple residents called 911 after hearing a loud pop from within the complex.
In a report about the incident, the Santa Clara Fire Department noted displaced concrete on the north side of the building, where the main entrance is located.
Authorities evacuated around 60 people who were in the complex at the time, along with residents of 10 surrounding homes in the potential collapse zone.
The next morning, a team of engineers representing Legend USA, Villa Bella’s HOA, and the city arrived and concluded there was no imminent danger of collapse. But they determined that major structural reinforcement was needed before the building could be safely occupied.
Weeks later, residents still have no idea when they might be able to return. A spokesperson for the city of Santa Clara said the developer was still obtaining bids from contractors. Legend USA had not submitted any city permits for repair work as of Wednesday.
The Standard contacted Legend USA with a detailed list of questions. A spokesperson declined to comment beyond saying the company is “actively cooperating” with partners “to address the situation and ensure that appropriate safety measures are implemented.”
Snapped tendons
To understand how a new building could face such serious structural issues, The Standard reviewed photos taken by residents and obtained design documents through public records.
Those materials were shared with two independent construction experts who were not involved with the project and emphasized that their analysis is incomplete without a site inspection.
Both pointed to the same likely cause: a failure in a post-tensioned concrete slab, the structural system that supports the building above its street-level parking garage.
In simple terms, part of the garage’s ceiling spalled, and internal steel cables known as tendons burst out of the concrete. That kind of failure can produce a loud popping or explosive sound, according to Casey Hemmatyar, founder of Pacific Structural and Forensic Engineers Global, and the cables can shoot out of a building (opens in new tab) with enough force to cause serious injury.
Post-tension cables burst through the side of the building at 1850 El Camino Real. | Source: Anna Nevskaya/Google Maps
More than 130 residents had to evacuate the complex. | Source: Kevin V. Nguyen/The Standard
Concrete is incredibly strong in compression, but it’s prone to cracking when stretched or bent. In structures like Villa Bella, where a parking garage supports residential floors above, that stress is managed either by adding rebar or applying post-tensioning reinforcing, which involves threading tendons in plastic sleeves through the slab before it’s poured over.
Once the concrete hardens, those tendons are pulled tight at the slab’s edges using hydraulic jacks, creating internal tension that strengthens the slab. Multifamily housing developers typically favor this technique because it’s more cost effective than rebar, uses less concrete, reduces the overall building weight, and as a result, can enhance the slab’s performance, Hemmatyar said.
However, the system can be highly vulnerable to corrosion, which can be accelerated by water leaks or extreme heat exposure. Damaged tendons may remain functional for an extended amount of time before failing suddenly. At Villa Bella, the concrete slab was exposed to both.
In 2019, two years after Legend USA acquired the property for $10 million and started construction, a four-alarm fire swept through (opens in new tab) the construction site, destroying the wood framing the developer had erected above the podium garage. The fire exposed the underlying concrete slab to extreme temperatures.
In a letter (opens in new tab) addressed to nearby residents and the city weeks after the fire, the developer’s general contracting firm said it would test the garage structure before rebuilding. The firm declined to provide details about the results of those tests.
If only a localized portion of a post-tensioned slab is damaged, it can sometimes be strengthened. But widespread failure may neccesitate replacing the entire structure — a process that at Villa Bella would have meant removing the residential building above it.
A city block remains closed because of structural concerns at the condo complex. | Source: Kevin V. Nguyen/The Standard
Little is publicly known about Legend USA. Property records list Raymond C. Wang as chairman and Ying Chen as managing director. Sources in the real estate community described the company as a small family office that has solicited investments for housing projects for more than a decade.
Villa Bella was the firm’s first residential development project. Legend USA is planning a 20-unit townhome project in Mountain View (opens in new tab) that was approved by the City Council in September.
Hemmatyar, who has investigated thousands of structural failures, said they are often preventable. “Most issues I’ve encountered arise from efforts to reduce cost or bypass proper practices,” he said.
Other housing developers, when told about the project, privately criticized Legend USA for using its own construction firm on its first-ever project rather than hiring a reputable third-party builder, who might have had more experience dealing with unanticipated challenges.
Goulart and her neighbors on Clay Street were allowed back into their homes a few days after the evacuation. But Villa Bella residents are waiting, paying for hotels and rentals out of pocket or staying with loved ones, with no clear timeline on when they might return.