A law requiring safety inspections at every New York City parking garage set a deadline that came too late for victims of a deadly collapse at a structure in Downtown Manhattan on Tuesday.
Parking garage owners in most of the city still have four years to comply.
The rules, part of a larger buildings package passed in 2021 known as Local Law 126, require all of New York City’s more than 1,200 parking garages to undergo an inspection by a certified professional by the end of 2027. The requirement is phased in by borough. Structures south of Central Park and on the Upper West Side are due for an inspection by the end of this year. This would include the garage that caved in at 57 Ann St.
Garages in the rest of Manhattan and Brooklyn have until the end of 2025 to comply, while owners in the other three boroughs have until the end of 2027.
The law took effect at the start of last year, but few parking garage owners have completed the process, structural engineers told Gothamist. Building records show the garage at 57 Ann St. had yet to file an inspection report. At least one person died and five others were injured as a result of Tuesday’s collapse.
“A lot of people didn’t realize this started in January 2022,” said engineer Tai Mahmuti, a partner at Hoffman Architects. “But Dec. 31 is around the corner and they have to get their garages tested and inspected.”
Before Local Law 126, no rule forced owners to undergo inspections, Mahmuti and other engineers said.
“These things are cash cows, and it’s expensive to repair them.”
A Department of Buildings inspection determined that the first and second floors of the three-story Ann Street structure, along with the roof, fell into the footprint of the building, according to a statement released by Mayor Eric Adams’ office late Wednesday.
“There's an investigation into exactly what happened here and making sure there's something we could put in place to prevent something like this from happening. We will,” Adams said.
The garage is run by Little Man Parking, a company that operates 16 other parking garages in the city — from Stapleton on Staten Island to Longwood in the Bronx, according to a list of addresses on its website. The buildings are owned by various companies and individuals. None had inspection reports under Local Law 126 on file with the Department of Buildings, a review by Gothamist shows.
Little Man owner Lance Howard did not respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.
Jeremy Zweig, a spokesperson for the garage’s direct operator, called the collapse “a tragic event.”
“We are devastated at the loss of one of our long-time employees and our thoughts are with his family and those who were injured in the accident,” Zweig said. “We are fully cooperating with city agencies and other authorities as they investigate this incident.”
A review of building records for more than 30 other parking garages south of 14th Street showed that none had submitted inspection reports to the city.
Patrick Conlon, a structural engineer qualified by the city to conduct inspections under the new law, said some garage owners may have already hired engineers but are waiting to file reports until they can bring their buildings into compliance.
“You're not necessarily obligated to file the report as soon as you start the inspection,” Conlon said. “There's really nothing wrong with advising the owner that they have conditions in need of repair and it would be in their best interest to repair them immediately. So that when the inspection is completed at some point later that year, the report that's filed would have no conditions in need of repair.”
Conlon said his first inspection under the new rules is currently underway. Mahmuti, the engineer, said parking garage owners have only recently started contacting his company about the inspections, even though the law has been in effect for more than 15 months.
Tuesday's collapse may motivate more garage owners to get their inspection processes underway.
“My phone’s been buzzing,” Mahmuti said.
The city’s Department of Buildings had scheduled a class for qualified inspectors to learn how to file the necessary reports on the city’s website on Wednesday morning — less than 24 hours after the downtown disaster.
The gradual phasing in of the city’s new inspection regime to cover them all is largely a result of limited capacity, Conlon said.
“There are only so many licensed engineers and architects in the area,” he said. “If the department were to put forth a rule that abruptly required inspection of every single parking garage within the city limits by some arbitrary date in the near future, compliance would be virtually impossible.”
Ann Street in Downtown Manhattan was deserted a day after the collapse of a parking garage.
The city’s mandatory inspection rules came five years after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo vetoed legislation in 2016 that would have made parking garage inspections mandatory in the wake of a collapse near Binghamton. The state adjusted its rules the following year and required owners of parking garages outside New York City to undergo inspections by October 2021.
Two years passed before city lawmakers enacted a local version of the rules for the five boroughs, giving many owners six years to comply or risk fines. After the initial inspection, owners have another six years to hire a certified engineer to conduct another assessment.
It’s unclear when city building inspectors last visited the parking structure at 57 Ann St., a nearly century-old concrete building that began storing cars in 1957, according to city building records. The operator's garage license shows a total car capacity of 276, though a 2018 property assessment showed the garage had capacity to hold 102 vehicles. An estimate provided by City Hall on Wednesday said there were approximately 80 to 90 vehicles on the roof and inside the building at the time of the collapse.
The Department of Buildings had not recorded any new violations at the property since 2013, when inspectors flagged a locked exit door, a missing staircase handrail and missing vehicle barriers.
City Buildings Commissioner Kazimir Vilenchik said the garage had some open violations for structural problems dating back to 2003. Inspectors found some concerning problems, like sagging support beams and cracking concrete, in 2009. They also noted illegal work being done that year in the building’s cellar, where workers had created a doorway-sized opening in a brick wall. Vilenchik said the owner filed paperwork to correct the problems a year later, but it was unclear if they made the fixes.
Property records list the building's owner as 57 Ann Street Realty Associates, Inc., a company headed by Alan and Jeffrey Henick, who also owned properties in Williamsburg, according to building and finance records. Neither have responded to emails and phone calls seeking comment.
Garage owners can rake in huge sums on parking fees but conducting a thorough inspection can cost them business. The inspections and any ensuing work usually requires workers to cordon off areas and restrict the number of cars that can park there.
“These things are cash cows, and it’s expensive to repair them,” said structural engineer Eric Cowley, who is certified by the city to inspect parking garages.
He said the collapse will likely raise awareness of the inspection requirements and will probably mean that the city will be less forgiving of any problems that need fixing.
"Unfortunately, the rule came a little late," he told Gothamist on Tuesday night.
This story has been updated to reflect the total car capacity listed on the garage's license and the number of cars estimated to be inside the building at the time of the collapse.
