I will not get political here.
I looked at it and it's a five story building of about 50'x90=4,500 sq ft/floor or 22,500 sq ft total.
Construction type IIIb?
What exactly are the floors made up of? We looking at solid wood joists, perhaps 2x10's or 2x12'xs, with wood flooring and wood lathe and plaster ceilings?
If someone knows what they typically are I would honestly like to know.
Fire in the right place would take this building out before the fire department got there and that fire escape from the 1920's is an absolute joke.
Under today's most common building code, the
International Building Code, this building would be Type I non-combustible and if Type IIIb it would be limited to 3 stories unless it had a fire sprinkler system.
Note: I know the code is marked New Jersey but I believe, though I can not be sure, New York pretty much follows the same thing.
Chances are if the building was equipped with fire sprinklers nobody would have died and the fire would never had made the news.
http://www.firemarshals.org/resources/Documents/NASFM%20Documents/F1%20-%20FIRE%20SPRINKLER%20FACTS.pdf
Cost to retrofit fire sprinklers in a building such as this?
New York has high labor costs so it would cost more than say the more rural areas of the country.
A lot also depends on the pressure available at the flow required. For example if you have 60 psi flowing 500 gpm at the street most likely you would not need a fire pump which adds significant costs but if all you got is 30 psi, which has to be very rare, then you will need a small 250 gpm fire pump.
I will take a wild guess here and put the cost at $4.00/sq ft or less than $100,000 but you could probably add $35,000 for a small fire pump by the time you had electrical work added.
In Indiana or Ohio you could expect $2.50 to $3.00 per sq ft and $25,000 for the fire pump if needed. In areas I have worked in, I hold licenses in Alaska, Nebraska, Ohio, Vermont and four states in the south, a fire pump would only be needed in about 20% of the locations. $60,000 unless something weird popped up such as having to install an adequate water main under a four lane interstate highway.
How many rental units did this building have, 25? In most of the country a retrofit would run $2,500 a rental unit but I suppose we could double that in New York City.
That all said, and I hope someone here finds this interesting, knowing what I know I would never spend a single night in a building like that. Not one night, I would rather sleep in the car.
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