Residents forced to evacuate Massachusetts condo due to structural problems

CAMBRIDGE – Residents in Cambridge, Massachusetts have been forced to evacuate their condos after structural problems were discovered.

Families who’ve called the Riverview Condos home are finding themselves uprooting their lives and calling moving trucks without much notice.

“It’s been devastating, people who have lived here for nearly 50 years now have to move, many seniors live here,” said a resident who wanted to keep her privacy. “To see all of these people needing to leave their residence and not knowing where exactly they’re going has been extremely distressful for them and also for me just seeing the looks on their faces every morning with concern and anxiety and depression.”

Building deemed unsafe

It’s been prime real estate in Cambridge overlooking the Charles River since the 1960s, but city officials said the building is not safe because of structural issues that engineers discovered during a roof replacement construction project.

Now the management company, Thayer and Associates, said the building must be fortified, so residents and everything have to go. The company said for six decades, they didn’t know substandard concrete was used in the original construction of the building and that reinforcing steel (rebar) had been improperly placed within it.

“Until recently, no one had any reason to suspect the errors that occurred in the original construction. Rebar is by definition concealed by the concrete it is intended to reinforce, and the slabs were largely covered by flooring and other finishings,” said Candice Morse, president of the company, Cambridge-based Thayer & Associates.

Kristina Klamer came to pick up her 92-year-old grandma who’s lived in the building for about a decade.

“I’m very disappointed in the way things are being handled, it’s really upsetting,” said Klammer. “I just feel really sad for her that she has all of these possessions, all of these photo books and memories from her life and she has no place to put them. She just has to get rid of them. But to have to do this so soon with this deadline is really difficult.”

The property management group said they’re trying to help residents and have held informational meetings, but residents say they’re footing their moving bills on their own.

“Stressed out by the whole thing, it’s really a matter of not knowing or clear instructions,” said Linda who’s helping her friend move and taking her in. “It was very short notice, and a lot of the people are older, a lot of them are in their 80s and to all of a sudden be finding, like my friend she doesn’t have a place to go.”

Could be year before return

And some say it could be at a year before they can come back to their beloved homes.

“There’s a lot of mixed messages, I think people are just left with a lot of questions that are unanswered, so I think that’s where the frustration is because people don’t know what to do,” said one resident.

The big concern too is that a lot of rentals are challenging in the Cambridge area with the academic calendar.

Residents said they have about four weeks to move all their belongings out.