221 Mt Auburn St

[magid]

I’ve had a couple of (regular corpus maintenance, not fixing) appointments at Mount Auburn Hospital recently, and I decided to walk rather than bus. The first time, I figured I’d get to check out the progress at 221 Mt Auburn St, but no dice: the street is not only blocked to vehicular traffic for a couple of blocks (non-trivial; it’s a somewhat major street), but also pedestrians. I feel so badly for the folks who used to live there.

Decades ago (1950s? 1960s? 1970s?), an upscale apartment building was built at 221 Mt Auburn St, Riverview Condominiums. It’s a great location, because the other side of the street is too narrow for anything other than a strip of park, so the views over the Charles River are lovely, and it’s on the edge of a pretty fancy neighborhood. It was never pretty to me, but I assumed folks were buying for the views, and all the units had porches.

Skip forward to 2023, when the building needed some work done, and the contractor (or whoever) was checking the scope of what needed to be done. The whoever-it-was found that…. the builder hadn’t followed the architect’s plans. And the mistake meant that the building wasn’t so structurally sound. Eep!

Further investigation found that not only were there structural issues, but also that the issues would cost more than the building was worth to fix, partly because there was asbestos, too. Yikes!

Everyone had moved out by the end of 2024 (I have no idea how many units were in the building; it can’t have been easy for folks to find places nearby, or how many moved away). And given the expense, the condo association decided to deal with the problem by giving it to the city. I can’t imagine how that worked for owners, losing such a big investment (would anyone have an insurance policy that covers this issue? seems unlikely).

Given the structural issues, the city blocked off the street even before the demolition started, rerouting traffic down side streets that are usually quiet two-way streets, but for now are one-way only. It’s a lot closer to done; I don’t know yet what the city will put there. I think it’s zoned residential, so I’d guess housing, but who knows.

Demo photos by week available at:
https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/capitalbuildingprojects/projectsinitiatives/221mtauburnstreet

Comments

[cellio]

Wow, I feel sorry for the people who owned units -- they were defrauded. Are there lawsuits? (Not that a lawsuit helps with getting a new place now. That part is terrible for the victims.)

[magid]

It would make sense if there’s someone still around to sue, though I haven’t heard anything about lawsuits; I’m not sure whether the builders (whoever they were) are still around as a company. I can’t imagine who else they’d sue if the builders aren’t available.

And yes, it’s horrible for the victims.
(Though in today’s political landscape, I’ll point out that if they had the wherewithal to afford one of these, hopefully they have other noticeable resources as well.)

[cellio]

The builders might be gone, but doesn't the local government require building inspections? Somebody either gave them an occupancy permit or failed to make sure that an inspection happened, so there might be grounds for the condo association to sue the government. It'd be messy, of course.

I hope that the victims were all able to land safely. People who had the wherewithal to buy upscale units might have also had a lot of their money in those units, worse than being underwater in a mortgage for a property you can at least still live in. What a terrible situation.

[magid]

My wholly uneducated guess is that they can’t sue the local government that took their problem on when they accepted the building being given to the city to deal with (tear down….).

[ruthling]

I had no idea, I've definitely walked by there. I'm getting pretty annoyed with the complete streets construction since my medical stuff is at Mt. Auburn, too. How much better is the street going to be given how disruptive the construction has been?

[magid]

My impression was that they closed the street off not just for the construction, but also due to safety concerns, lest the building fall down in an unscheduled sort of way (ie liability prevention). Once the building is fully down, though, I don’t know why they haven’t re-opened the street. If they’re building something new, well, there’s plenty of space for whatever vehicles to park on the lot itself….