The former Pfizer headquarters at 235 East 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, where structural columns buckled on its 21st floor this morning leading to concerns of collapse, generated seven construction safety violations in 2025 with more than $32,000 in penalties.
The city’s largest planned office-to-residential conversion, led by David Werner and Nathan Berman’s Metro Loft Management and architect Gensler, had multiple Department of Buildings violations last year preceding today’s evacuation of workers.
“As we await the arrival of materials that will stabilize the building, DOB engineers have been investigating with FDNY drones,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a press conference. “DOB inspectors and engineers are managing an incredibly complex situation.”
“We’re thankful there were no injuries, and as the DOB clarified, no debris fell from the building,” said a Metro Loft spokesperson in a statement. “We want to confirm that the affected area is a small section of one of the two buildings on this site. As the FDNY spokesperson noted, the entire building itself is not at risk of collapse.”
Most recently, the LLC associated with the residential conversion, 235 GC LLC, was dinged in December for failing to notify the DOB of a construction incident that resulted in a fatality or injury, which carried a penalty of $10,000. The seven DOB violations last year were each resolved by the LLC employing general contractor Robert Travis, with all but one of the construction safety infractions classified as immediately hazardous.
In another violation filed last December, the DOB described an incident where a worker fell six feet from a ladder that was not on a flat and level surface, carrying with it a $10,000 penalty.
Records show that no money was paid for any of the violations last year, but that certificates of correction were accepted.
“This is a building that was going through an office-[to]-residential conversion — it went through plan review and has gone through an extensive, exhaustive review with DOB over the past two years,” said DOB Commissioner Ahmed Tigani at the press conference. “What is happening now is an investigation of what is the cause of why the undermining happened.”
As part of the residential conversion, the building that formerly housed Pfizer’s headquarters was adding 11 floors to a section previously only 22 stories tall.
Last August, work stopped briefly at the building when authorities responded to a suspected fire reported as “some smoke by a construction site” in a DOB complaint filed by someone who was “concerned for the workers.” Metro Loft denied at the time that a fire had occurred.
In October, another complaint pointed out “unlicensed workers” and “unsafe conditions” at the site of the office-to-residential conversion.
“Today a large item fell and broke through 5 floors and almost hit someone,” the complaint said. “There are gas machines without proper ventilation. These are hazardous conditions for the workers.”
The complaint also mentioned sparks hitting workers due to lack of safety blankets, unlicensed welders and chipping gun usage without protection from falling debris, causing pieces of concrete to fall constantly from above. Multiple complaints from the last two years highlight falling debris.
Office-to-residential conversions, a core aspect of former Mayor Eric Adams’ zoning overhaul City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, have also been championed by the Mamdani administration. The mayor’s SPEED task force aims to reduce permitting timelines for conversion projects by approximately five months.
There were at least 17,432 rental and condo units that announced plans between 2020 and March 2025 for conversions from office space across Manhattan and Brooklyn, according to a report by former Comptroller Brad Lander.
The second largest planned office-to-residential conversion at 111 Wall Street generated 10 construction safety violations since the beginning of 2025, while another at 25 Water Street had eight such violations during the same period.
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