Make Your Apartment Building Earthquake Resistant With A Soft-Story Retrofit To Protect Lives, Investment
Apartment buildings with a “soft-story” are particularly at-risk of earthquake damage. Soft-story buildings usually have a large, open ground floor space like a parking area, with one or more stories above it. Without shear walls and other seismic fittings, there’s nothing to prevent one or more upper levels from collapsing into the area below.
There are numerous economic advantages to addressing these risks. By structurally securing their buildings with earthquake retrofits, apartment owners preserve their equity, protect their income stream, safeguard important physical assets, and avoid costly liability claims.
Recognizing these benefits and in order to protect the public, the Los Angeles City Council enacted two earthquake retrofit ordinances in 2015 (183893 and 184081), which authorized a survey of all buildings in the city that needed a soft-story retrofit, and was used to set a deadline for building owners to complete the retrofit process. Since then, Optimum Seismic has worked with many of the more than 4,000 property owners who have completed their Los Angeles earthquake retrofit projects.
Earthquake retrofit projects are unique to each individual building. Depending on when the building was constructed, the materials that were used and the architecture of the structure, one soft-story retrofit project may be more involved than another.
The most important thing about your earthquake retrofit project is that it’s done right. You and your tenants will ultimately measure the quality and success of your retrofit project based on how well your building stands up to the next major earthquake.
Six Steps to Retrofitting Your Soft-Story Apartment Building
Step 1 – Obtain a free preliminary consultation. Optimum Seismic can then provide a fixed fee earthquake engineering proposal that will give you an idea about high and low construction estimates.
Step 2 – Once an engineering contract is signed, Optimum Seismic will survey your property, prepare as built plans, perform engineering calculations, and complete an efficient and constructible design which meets the needs of your particular building. Plans will be submitted to the building department and go through the plan check process.
Step 3 – Plans are approved and Permit Ready. We provide a copy of approved plans and a fixed, guaranteed price for construction. At this point the client can shop for bids using these approved plans.
Step 4 – If a construction contract is signed, Optimum Seismic will then complete the Tenant Habitability Plan process, obtain the permit and post notices to all tenants. We are required to give 21 days notice before we can start.
Step 5 – Optimum Seismic performs construction usually between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. and covers all trenches safely at 5 p.m. so tenants can park as usual.
Step 6 – Approval of a Cost Recovery Application by the city of Los Angeles allows property owners to pass through a portion of retrofit costs to tenants. Optimum Seismic can assist in this process.
If your soft-story building is required to have a retrofit, time is running out to comply with the city of Los Angeles’ soft-story retrofitting laws. Therefore, it’s important to obtain a professional soft-story retrofit consultation now.
Optimum Seismic has successfully guided building owners through the seismic retrofitting process since 1984, and we are ready to help make your apartment building earthquake resistant. Call us today at 866.225.8450 or visit www.optimumseismic.com.
Source: optimumseismic.com
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