A partial demolition of the Haste Street apartment building destroyed by a fire last Friday could begin as soon as this week.
After the fire, the building — located at 2441 Haste St. on the corner of Haste Street and Telegraph Avenue — was deemed structurally unsound and at risk of collapse, forcing the city to block off the surrounding area to pedestrian and car traffic. Now, the lower stories of the building will be braced by support beams, while some of the walls of the upper stories will be removed in order to make the building safer for nearby residences and pedestrians, according to Gil Dong, deputy fire chief for Berkeley Fire Department.
Dong said he expects the safety improvements to be completed by Dec. 5.
Though normal permit processes can take anywhere from several weeks to months, Dong said the building’s contractor was given an expedited permit that was approved Wednesday in order to address the glaring safety issues of the hazardous building. The Berkeley Fire Department verified
Wednesday that all 68 tenants who lived in the 39-unit building are accounted for and safe, according to the city’s website.
Dong said there has been frequent communication with the owners of the building, Kenneth and Greg Ent, since the night of the fire — Nov. 18 — especially about what needs to be done to follow the building’s safety protocol.
Neither Kenneth Ent nor Greg Ent could be reached for comment.
In its current condition, the building is structurally unsound and has the potential to collapse from anything, such as a minor earthquake, since there are no interconnecting beams holding the walls in place, Dong said.
Several neighboring areas have been blocked off until the building is secured, including the streets around Telegraph Avenue and Haste Street, as well as Thai Noodle II and the apartment building immediately next door, 2435 Haste St.
Even after the building is made secure, it will not be habitable until after remodeling, since there is currently no roof and no electricity. Reoccupying or living in the building is an extremely expensive remodel, which will take a longer period of time to accomplish, if done at all, Dong said.
He added that it is unclear whether the owner or his insurance will pay the demolition costs.
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I think there might be some harsh economic reality ahead; new construction is very expensive, especially in a tight, downtown location, and capital is hard to come by. I will be a bit surprised if the apartment building is rebuilt. But, if the owner had really good insurance, he might pull it off. Hope so, we need housing.
Rent control will ffix the problem…LOL
vacant apartments aren’t subject to rent control, libsrclowns. why don’t you do some homework before trolling every fire article that gets posted…
The building was clearly neglected because rent control would not allow the owner to charge market rates which would have afforded him the ability to do needed maintenance and repair.
Yeah, it couldn’t possibly be because the owner would rather squeeze the short-term cash out of the building rather than invest in its future. Because that *never* happens, does it?
“civilized discourse”‘s point still stands. Vacant apartments aren’t rent-controlled, and since most of the Ents’ tenants were students, a reasonable number of apartments would turn over every couple of years or so. I’ll say it again : if the building weren’t profitable, they would have closed it down and/or sold it.
My family visited me a few years ago and we went to Mario’s, they loved it.
Mario’s actually luckily moved locations. It is still at Telegraph and Haste, but it is called Remy’s now. Good timing.
Really good Mexican food. The back of the restaurant, there was a skinny as hell stairway i think, near the bathroom.
Rebuild all of telegraph, get rid of the homeless and throw all of the gutter punks in to a giant blender and use your meat juice to fertilize new trees on the sidewalk.
birds and stones, baby!
Do you have any idea how bad gutter punk meat smells?
Never had my lips around it. You?
Intermezzo is a study in dysfunction anyway.
i) tell some overworked kid your order
ii) pay cashier 6 feet away
iii) wait, wait, wait
iv) conclude & confirm your order got lost in the shuffle
v) realize neither the kid making sandwiches nor the cashier you just paid has any idea what you ordered.
They do this 40 hours/week and don’t have clue one:
i) take order on carbon-copy pad
ii) sandwich maker keeps one copy
iii) cashier gets the other copy
iv) you get receipt upon payment
Problem solved.
They are so inept at Intermezzo, they deserve to remain closed for all time.
I don’t know what you’re talking about – every time I ate there, they got my order right and I didn’t have to wait too long. It seemed like they had too many people behind the counter, but for $6 you got a lot of salad so it wasn’t a big deal.
The headline makes it sound like there will be a total demolition, but the article leaves the idea that they may keep the existing exterior walls and rebuild.