October 26–November 2, 2000

city beat

Fired Up on Chestnut

Welcome to your new home: Resident Tamera Baggett was trapped in this high-rise apartment elevator for 45 minutes the day she moved in. photo: Michael LeGrand

by Ralph Cipriano

On Sept. 1, the day Tamera Baggett moved into her high-rise apartment at 1300 Chestnut St., she says she got trapped in an elevator for 45 minutes while the fire alarm was ringing.

Baggett called 911 on her cell phone. Firefighters arrived, she says, and had to pry open the elevator doors so that Baggett could scramble out between the fifth and sixth floors.

Baggett says that when she moved into the 10-story high-rise , which is owned by Philadelphia Management Corp., she was unaware that the building had no certificate of occupancy (C.O.) That’s the certificate city officials issue when a building meets all provisions of the fire and building codes and the city’s plumbing and electrical codes.

Unwilling to risk another elevator ride, Baggett says she climbed the stairway, stepping over electrical cords and buckets on the way to her 9th floor apartment. When she got there, she says she discovered the phone didn’t work, she didn’t have hot water and her stove didn’t work.

But that wasn’t all. She couldn’t open the windows, the air-conditioning didn’t work and the temperature in her apartment soon hit 100 degrees.

Now Baggett is one of a dozen tenants interviewed this week who say they plan to withhold their rent as a protest against their landlord, Ronald Caplan, president of Philadelphia Management.

"I’m pissed," she says.

"Everybody is pissed in this building," adds another tenant who doesn’t want to give a name.

There’s a revolt underway inside the high rise at 1300 Chestnut, where contractors are still working, and where the building still doesn’t have a certificate of occupancy. The high rise is one of five in Center City where developer Caplan has moved in hundreds of tenants during the past two years, even though none of the buildings had certificates of occupancy at the time, according to a fire department source.

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story Sunday about a sixth Caplan property at 315 Arch that also didn’t have a C.O. According to the Inquirer, L&I officials had to shut the place down because it wasn’t safe. David Perri, deputy L&I Commissioner, was quoted in the Inquirer story as saying the building was not up to code, so L&I had to step in and protect a dozen tenants. "We’re looking out for their safety," Perri said.

The 60 tenants at 1300 Chestnut say they would like to know when L&I is going to do something to protect their safety.

Perri said that residents in the high-rise at 1300 Chestnut have nothing to worry about as far as safety is concerned. The building is "fully sprinklered," and has a "state-of-the-art fire alarm system," Perri said. "I believe the building’s safe." That’s why L&I officials did not issue a cease operations order, and have the high -rise at 1300 Chestnut evacuated, as they did with the high-rise at 315 Arch, Perri said.

Perri said that L&I officials only became aware two weeks ago that residents were living at 1300 Chestnut. L&I officials have since issued a violation to Philadelphia Management for moving tenants into the building before a certificate of occupancy was issued. "We are not at all happy as a department that he moved people in before he had a C.O.," Perri said.

Tenants began moving into the building eight weeks ago, on Sept. 1. At the time, there were no carpets in the hallways or wallpaper or fire extinguishers, and the elevators didn’t work, tenants say.

A fire department source has said when the tenants moved in, there were no fire alarms in any of the bedrooms, as required by the city fire code. The source spoke anonymously, claiming that the city’s Managing Director has threatened to terminate any fire department employee using his or her name, a charge that office denies. Contractors installed the alarms last week, the source has said, but there are still outstanding fire code violations at 1300 Chestnut.

Management has not provided the city with certifications for the sprinkler systems or the standpipes, the vertical piping that supplies water to each floor in the event of a fire, the source said. Also, the city building code requires that the standpipe system be hooked up to a water supply and a fire pump, the source said.

Perri has a different interpretation of the law, and does not believe a wet standpipe is necessary.

Tenants, however, say they have other concerns: windows that don’t open, roofs that leak and a lack of security in the building. Caplan did not return two phone calls. City Paper has reported previously that the city’s inspector general is investigating whether L&I officials acted properly in dismissing 100 fire code violations at 15 Center City high rises and apartment buildings owned or managed by Philadelphia Management. Caplan is a wealthy and influential Center City developer who has been described by city officials as a pioneer in revitalizing Center City.

The high-rise at 1300 Chestnut has Picasso prints in the lobby, marble floors and wood paneling. Workers just hung an emergency sign for the Fire Command Center in the lobby. Tenants, however, aren’t impressed with the staff at Philadelphia Management.

"They showed no concern for our safety," said one tenant who did not want to give a name. "I guess we’re just not gonna pay rent for the next two months."

Rents for one and two bedroom apartments run between $950 and $1,200 a month, tenants say.

Tenants say they are organizing a tenants’ union, and plan to withhold rent until the building is brought up to code and requested repairs are made. A spokesman for the Philadelphia Bar Association said that without a certificate of occupancy, a landlord cannot go to Municipal Court and evict a tenant for not paying rent.

Tenants at 1300 Chestnut also say the latest resident who arrived this weekend was evacuated from 315 Arch because that building also didn’t have a C.O. That tenant could not be reached.

Caplan has steadfastly refused to comment to City Paper for the past month. However, he has previously argued that he and his firm deserve special treatment from the city for the revitalizing work they are doing, especially in regards to relaxing provisions of the fire code.

On April 20, 1999, Philadelphia Management and "Ronald Caplan, President," submitted an 11-page report to the city on "Fire Safety in Residential Apartment Buildings, A Fresh Evaluation of the Current State of Fire Safety in High-Rise Residential Structures in the City of Philadelphia."

The report argues that the type of work Caplan’s firm is doing, converting commercial buildings to residential use, provides "an overwhelming benefit to the City of Philadelphia."

"These advantages must be taken into account when considering the scope of any project," the report argues.

Caplan’s firm argues that the type of buildings they are converting should not be considered high-rises, which according to city codes, are any building over 75 feet or seven stories high. "Clearly, 12 story, one hundred thousand square foot buildings should not be burdened by the same building codes and fire prevention requirements as 50 story, one million square foot buildings," the report says.

The report argues that the "fire protection industry creates and markets ‘newer and better’ fire protection gadgets" that result in higher costs, not safer buildings. "An examination of current fire-death statistics shows that a relaxation of code requirements does not compromise safety," the report says.

The report quotes a Federal Emergency Management Agency report that says the leading cause of deaths in apartment building fires are careless smoking and children playing with fire.

"We have to get past all of the public propaganda that leads to an unrealistic fear of death in high-rise apartment fires (as seen in the film The Towering Inferno)," the report says. "In the last 30 years in the City of Philadelphia, there have been virtually no civilian fire deaths in buildings over seven stories high that could have been prevented by any of the latest fire protection gadgets."

The report calls on the city to create a new class of mid-range buildings to eliminate the "excessive amount of fire safety codes being applied to mid-rise buildings."

The report also advises municipal authorities to "act as a stimulus to development, not an impediment."

A source in the Fire Department, who sought anonymity, said he could not believe "the arrogance of the guy [Caplan]."

The report, the source said, was "written by someone who does not know fire codes, fire safety and what it’s like to be in a fire in a high-rise building. I just think it’s an incredible joke."