Philadelphia Metropolitan Area Real Estate Law Blog

The parents of a woman killed in the June 5 collapse of the Salvation Army Thrift Store have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the property owner, the demolition contractor, the Salvation Army and several other entities. Their daughter, 24, was shopping at the Center City site when the building came down. She was one of six people killed; several more were seriously injured.

The attorney representing several victims of the Center City building collapse announced this week that he has evidence that the Salvation Army knew the risks the demolition project posed to workers and patrons and chose to ignore them. A series of emails, he said, shows that the head of the organization and the property manager engaged in “a game of chicken” that resulted in six deaths and injuries to more than a dozen people.

Reading from a prepared statement, a witness at a Philadelphia City Council committee hearing this week raked the Department of Licenses & Inspections over the coals. The Market Street building collapse in June that resulted in six deaths is just one of a decades-long string of failures, he said, that stem from the department’s emphasis on politics and economic development over public safety.

The Pennsylvania General Assembly is following the city of Philadelphia’s lead in the aftermath of the June 5, 2013, building collapse. The demolition of a Center City building went terribly wrong when a four-story brick wall fell onto the adjacent one-story Salvation Army thrift store. Six people died, and 13 were injured. The collapse buried 19 people in rubble.

The collapse of a wall at a demolition site in Philadelphia on June 5, 2013, served as a wake-up call for cities across the country. While investigators believe the sobriety of a demolition worker likely played a part in the collapse — and the deaths of six people — authorities may not have a complete picture of what happened for some time.

The news of a building collapse in Center City made headlines well beyond Philadelphia. Investigators are still looking into what exactly caused the demolition of a four-story building on Market Street to go so wrong. The building fell on the Salvation Army Thrift Shop, taking that structure down as well. In the end, six people were dead and another 13 injured. 

At least eight manufacturers of drywall have been sued by building contractors, lumber yards and homeowners who say they were charged to much for materials. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against the manufacturers since December. Plaintiffs say that the manufacturers raised their prices in concert beginning in September 2011 in such a way that it could only have been coordinated.

Prefabricated housing-a construction method in which manufacture takes place off-site in advance, usually in standard sections that can be easily shipped and assembled-has become common in low-cost housing developments. Up until now, that trend hasn’t spread very widely.

At the end of November, the Forum Theater-an old porn theater made obsolete by virtue of videos and the Internet-became one of the last of its kind to die. In the wake of its closing, though, are plans to renew the property that serves as a key link between Philadelphia’s east and West sides.

In a recent post, we mentioned that the state of Pennsylvania has already received six applications for a casino license. One of the developers wants to redevelop the former Inquirer building and surrounding properties as part of a casino project. The others are set to present their proposals at the Pennsylvania Convention Center next month.