Rochester Tower Condominium deemed “safe” by the city

(ABC 6 News) – On June 2nd, tenants of the Rochester Towers were abruptly told to pack essentials and evacuate after engineers found structural issues with the building, fearing it could collapse. That evacuation happened in the wake of the partial collapse of an apartment building in Davenport, Iowa that killed three people.

The city says they gave the evacuation order out of an abundance of caution. Now, over a month later, the city is telling some who live in the building that they can return. But, some tenants who have equipment inside their units or missing windows, are still not being allowed to move back in.

“The building is stabilized and it is safe,” said James Coyle, the manager of building safety for the City of Rochester, “The engineers have demonstrated with a reasonable amount of professional care that the building is safe.”

While the announcement is welcome news for some residents, 12 units cannot be occupied as crews continue to shore up the building’s structure.

“We have about 12 units that are not occupied that will have work done on these columns that share units and it goes all the way from the first floor to the seventh floor,” said Coyle.

It’s still unclear how long before everyone gets to move back in.

On Thursday, the Rochester Towers’ home owners association released a statement saying in part: “The association’s engineering team is currently working on putting together a draft of priority repairs that they hope to be able to present to the board and owners in the next 1-2 weeks. We will have a better idea of repair plans and timelines once that information is available.”