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City to offer high-rises alternative to sprinklers
September 24, 2004
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
Chicago 's older residential buildings will be forced to pay over the next five years for safety improvements needed to avoid installing sprinklers, according to a city analysis distributed to aldermen.
Instead of saddling renters and condominium owners with the extraordinary cost of sprinklers, the still-pending ordinance that Mayor Daley introduced in response to a deadly Loop high-rise fire would give roughly 600 residential high-rises until December 2009 to implement other, less costly changes.
They range from fire-rated doors, fire wall protection and automatic voice communications systems that enable building personnel to communicate with tenants from a central location to sprinklers in hallways and basement storage areas and more sophisticated fire alarm detection systems.
Estimates prepared
Now, the city's Department of Construction and Permits has surveyed 26 sample buildings in a dozen wards and prepared an estimate of precisely what those improvements would cost.
They range from $29,679 or $2,283 per unit for a 13-unit, pre-World War II building at 2 N. Hamlin to $753,000 or $753 per unit for a 1,000-unit, postwar building at 148 E. Chestnut.
Buildings Committee Chairman Bernard Stone (50th) said the cost to his own condo has been pegged at $750 per unit, a tab he called ''modest'' when spread over a five-year period. The cost of installing sprinklers would have been at least ''10 times'' that amount, he said.
''I don't think anybody is balking. But people want to know how close this estimate is,'' Stone said. ''If the cost is too high, we don't want to go ahead. In the past, we've gone ahead with these ordinances and we've hit the people too hard. I don't want to do that again.''
Maurice Lee, an aide to Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th), noted that the cost of making safety improvements at the 20-unit building at 5490 S. South Shore Dr. is pegged at $148,850 or $7,123 per unit. That's only a fraction of the $5.1 million cost of installing sprinklers, he said.
''High-rise dwellers in the ward, particularly in the wake of the critical [facade] exam -- they were saying they couldn't afford anything on top of that,'' Lee said.
''It's not great. The best of all possible worlds would be not having anybody have to incur any additional costs. But there are safety issues that have to be addressed. This represents a much better way of doing things than sprinklers.''
Sources said the cost estimates for retrofitting buildings in a dozen wards -- the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 11th, 28th, 32nd, 42nd, 43rd, 44th, 46th, and 50th -- were developed after the buildings were ''visited by a combination of staff and consultants.'' The numbers were described as ''very, very preliminary.''
Cheaper than sprinklers
Whatever the final cost turns out to be, it'll be a lot less than requiring residential high-rises to install sprinklers, Daley said.
''We have huge co-ops and apartment buildings -- old buildings that have asbestos in 'em. They're very concerned. Many of them have never had a fire in a hallway, stairway or [anywhere] else. I'm just telling you -- it is a huge cost that these people have to bear. They have asbestos in there and they're afraid of knocking [down] the walls and asbestos. The cost factor is enormous,'' the mayor said.
The Buildings Committee met Thursday to consider a new version of Daley's ordinance -- minus a wiring issue that has stalled it for months. But, the meeting was postponed because the substitute ordinance wasn't ready.
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