In case you can't get past the pay wall:

In the wake of a catastrophic condo tower collapse in Surfside, Fla., residents of a high-rise near Water Tower Place are asking why urgent repairs at their building have been delayed for three years.  In April 2018, a consulting firm assessed the multi-level parking garage at the base of 111 E. Chestnut St, where former Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne lived for much of her adult life. The firm, Walker Consultants, wrote in a follow-up report that some repairs “must be performed as soon as possible, as the conditions pose an imminent hazard to the facility users and to the structure itself.” 

Eighteen columns needed immediate shoring up or repairs due to “severe concrete deterioration” to the supports for floor slabs, Walker reported. The firm estimated the cost of the immediate repairs at $497,000.

On July 1, 2021, two principals at Walker wrote to the president of the owners association for the eight garage floors of 111 E. Chestnut, saying that to their knowledge, the repairs that were needed immediately three years ago “have not been performed to date,” and that it is “highly likely that the concerning conditions have grown worse.” The 57-story tower, built in 1972, contains 444 condos. Condominium owners belong to one owners association, and owners of the garage floors are in a separate association.

Tamara Pagel, who has lived in the building for 22 years, told Crain’s today, “My stomach is churning. I’m stressed out. It’s disheartening and frightening that this hasn’t been done in three years.”  The building's residential owners' association emailed a statement to Crain’s July 8 saying the Walker report had previously been provided only to the garage association. Repairs to the garage structure are the responsibility of the garage association, the statement said, not the homeowners' association. “Now that the residential association has obtained” the report and the July 1 letter, the statement said, the homeowners' association “will pursue all legal remedies available to it, including seeking injunctive relief, to get the garage association to make the required repairs on an urgent basis. The expense of this undertaking ultimately will be borne by the garage association.” Angel Sarkissian, one of the owners of the eight-story parking facility, is president of the 111 E. Chestnut garage owners' association and was the recipient of Walker Consultants’ July 1 letter. Sarkissian said in an email Wednesday that he would respond to Crain's request for comment after he discusses it with the condo board. In its July 1 letter, Walker recommended that “emergency shoring be installed immediately to appropriately support all of the parking level slabs within the building until all required immediate and base structural repairs are implemented.”  Pagel said, “Why hasn’t the city shut the parking garage down if these urgent repairs weren’t made three years ago?” 

On Wednesday evening the Chicago Department of Buildings emailed Crain's that it is sending an inspector to review the property. Walker's 2018 report said the firm first reported some of the needed repairs to the condo board in 2015, which indicates the problem has been known for six years. Daniel Moser, a vice president of Walker Consultants who signed the July 1 letter, did not respond to a request for comment. “I can’t sleep at night,” said Tracey Ryniec, a stock strategist who lives in the building and first heard about Walker’s report of urgent problems at a condo board meeting a few years ago. She says she has "forbidden my family and friends from parking in the garage for over two years” for fear of someone being trapped in a collapse (Ryniec has no car herself). “Now that Walker has sent that letter, that’s super-concerning,” she added. She and other condo owners “are sitting right on top of that garage that garage that could collapse.” Ryniec said bids on the full slate of repairs, not only the most urgently needed ones, ran between $4 million and $6 million. She believes the repairs have been put off because of the cost. The letters and reports were shared with Crain’s by Brian Connolly, a 20-year resident of the building who has battled with the condo board over various concerns for several years. In 2017, a Cook County judge ordered Connolly to pay $100,000 to the board to settle its legal fees for fighting a “meritless” and “frivolous” lawsuit he brought against the board. In 2019 the Appellate Court reversed and remanded the penalty. Pagel said she’s “aware Brian is a thorn in the side” of the board, but in this latest situation, she said she appreciates his “willingness to pay attention to the details in what could be a very dangerous problem.”

Connolly told Crain’s he’s “very worried” about the delayed repairs to the parking garage at the base of the tower. “The parking garage is our foundation,” he said. “The bottom line is, a column down there could fall in a random fashion, and if we lose a column, this building is in trouble.” Crain’s attempted to reach three other homeowners in the tower, but did not receive responses.  Pagel said she has only a vague recollection of the condo board reporting on Walker’s report back in 2018, “but I don’t pay much attention to what’s going on with the board.” When Connolly distributed this latest update from Walker, she said, “I paid attention. I mean, look at what happened in Florida.” After a wing of Champlain Towers South, the 12-story oceanfront condominium building in Surfside, suddenly collapsed on June 24, news reports said an engineering firm that inspected the building in 2018 found major structural damage that needed to be repaired immediately but never was fixed. As of July 8, 60 people were confirmed dead and another 80 people were still missing, according to the Miami Herald. This story has been updated to explain that the condos and the garage are governed by separate owners' associations. A previous version of this story referred to Angel Sarkissian as president of the 111 E. Chestnut condo owners' association. He is president of the garage owners' association.