A couple weeks ago, a tipster informed us of a stop work order posted on a Market Street building near Preston Street. A few days later, another tipster cleared up the matter as a case of mistaken identity. Way to go Broken Sidewalk readers! Share the information.
Apparently, the owner of the building at 327 East Market Street (home to the 8664.org gallery) was “forced” to install a new fire-rated corridor to ensure safe egress from the building’s two upper floors. The building is joined with its neighbor at 325 East Market and an inspector did not notice a permit had already been issued for the project under a different street number. The matter has now been officially cleared and the Stop Work notice has been removed from the door.
It seems a little unfortunate the fire-corridor was required to align the way it does, covering two-thirds of the retail frontage, but the code says safety first.
Keep your sightings and snapshots coming in to tips@brokensidewalk.com.
ah, bureaucracy. refreshing isn’t it?
same bumbling bureacracy that caused the loss of another irreplaceable 130+ year old building in the East Market Distict Association at Jackson and Jefferson. Folks turned to the city to help before demo started only to become a victim of the bureacracy, and now, when it’s too late, I’m guessing the city put a stop work order on the property, not to save it, but to make sure it’s torn down in a manner more to their liking. See BS links…
http://brokensidewalk.com/2008/12/04/demo-watch-comdemning-west-mains-future/
http://brokensidewalk.com/2009/03/18/demo-watch-east-jefferson-street-building-reduced-to-rubble/
Well, the inspectors really should keep a sharper eye on things, but should they have a database to refer to when they want to issue notices like that? The whole city permit with regard to old building is slowly becoming a very complex problem, with newer building standards insisting on modern building materials that didn’t even exist when these old buildings were first put up.
Eventually you have an issue like in other cities (New York comes to mind) where the landlord does absolutely nothing to a building for decades just because of the enormous hassle of getting a permit.