{"id":295601,"date":"2026-07-14T16:52:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T16:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/295601\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T16:52:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T16:52:04","slug":"column-failure-halts-manhattan-reuse-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/295601\/","title":{"rendered":"Column failure halts Manhattan reuse project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Manhattan-scaled.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-215058\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Manhattan-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A towering glass and steel skyscraper against a partly cloudy blue sky. The building reflects sunlight, creating a sleek and modern appearance.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"512\"  \/><\/a>Two columns buckled inside the building.\u00a0Image courtesy Jim.henderson\/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/p>\n<p>A structural failure has delayed a major office-to-residential conversion project in midtown Manhattan after two columns buckled inside the building under renovation.<\/p>\n<p>The project aims to transform two office buildings\u2014one built in 1909 and the other in the 1960s\u2014into approximately 1,600 apartments. The plans include adding more than a dozen floors to the older building and redesigning and expanding the newer structure.<\/p>\n<p>The column failure occurred on the 21st floor of the newer building on July 7. Construction crews installed temporary supports as city officials and engineers investigate the cause.<\/p>\n<p>Early assessments point to additional structural loads as a possible factor. Ben Schafer, a structural engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University, and Emily Guglielmo, a San Francisco-based structural engineer, <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.com\/Business\/wireStory\/new-york-construction-scare-highlights-challenges-converting-offices-134643545\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">told ABC News<\/a> the added weight from the renovation likely contributed to the failure.<\/p>\n<p>Guglielmo said the original design assumptions may have been misunderstood, or construction crews may have overloaded or weakened the structure.<\/p>\n<p>She added that a combination of robust building codes, inspections, and experienced construction crews makes failures rare. \u201cWe\u2019re privileged to have really robust building codes that explain to us as engineers how to do our designs in a way that\u2019s safe,\u201d she told ABC News.<\/p>\n<p>Officials deemed the structure stable after workers added temporary supports from the ninth floor through the roof. They also used large quantities of pipe columns to support the structure.<\/p>\n<p>Developer speaks<\/p>\n<p>MetroLoft is the project\u2019s developer. Founder and principal Nathan Berman said the issue concerns the building\u2019s structural capacity, not the office conversion itself. \u201cIt\u2019s not a design issue,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/newyork\/news\/nathan-berman-metroloft-developer-unstable-building-pfizer-headquarters\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Berman told CBS<\/a>. \u201cThis issue is strictly structural. We put more load on the columns than they could support.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Berman said crews reinforced most of the building\u2019s columns but may have missed the two columns that later buckled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe may have not reinforced them properly, or we may have missed them,\u201d he told CBS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two columns buckled inside the building.\u00a0Image courtesy Jim.henderson\/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 A structural failure has delayed a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-295601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}