Midtown office-to-apartment conversion will jack its sagging floors back up 1/64 inch at a time

MetroLoft has dropped its plan to rebuild the damaged part of the tower. Engineering plans filed with the New York City Department of Buildings and reviewed by Gothamist call for hydraulic jacks to raise the sagging floors about 7 inches, 1/64 of an inch per step. CBS New York reported the total lift as about six inches. Thornton Tomasetti drew up the plan, and Plan B Engineering reviewed it and filed its analysis with the department. The buckled columns came out in September, according to records cited by Gothamist.

The trouble began on July 7, when two 21st-floor steel columns gave way beneath a large addition built over the existing frame and the floors above them sagged. The city evacuated nearby buildings, a school among them, and shut several Midtown blocks while crews shored the tower. Gothamist later reported that the columns never received the reinforcement a city-approved design required, which would have turned the I-shaped sections into closed boxes.

The Buildings Department says senior agency engineers and an outside engineering firm vetted the repair, and that its engineers will watch the work. It has not released its findings on why the columns failed. Job filings show Barone Steel Fabricators was hired for the first phase of steel erection. The firm is off the site for now; its attorney told Gothamist the firm finished the work its contract required so far and was not fired. After the failure, the department said, it reviewed other office conversions and found no problems.

The project is planned as the biggest conversion of offices to housing in New York City history. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has pushed conversions as the quickest route to more housing. Two structural engineers who studied the plan, Eric Cowley and Drexel University professor Abi Aghayere, told Gothamist the staged lift looked sound. Cowley said the real risk is rushing the lift and overlooking damage elsewhere in the frame.