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Engineers question city-approved plans after Brooklyn building collapse
By
David Brand
Published Nov 13, 2026 at 3:38 p.m. ET
Modified Nov 13, 2026 at 4:41 p.m. ET
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David Brand
By
David Brand
Published Nov 13, 2026 at 3:38 p.m. ET
Modified Nov 13, 2026 at 4:41 p.m. ET
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City-approved excavation plans at the site of Wednesday’s fatal apartment building collapse in Brooklyn did not require construction crews to install additional bracing to support the adjacent structure, according to a review of building records.
The plans instead called for cutting into the soil at a 45-degree angle away from the three-story apartment building’s foundation to a depth of roughly 15 feet. Every other building around the perimeter of the construction site was required to have reinforcing steel buttresses known as rakers, according to the plans.
The collapse killed eight people and injured 18 more. The development team behind the property had previously ignored a stop-work order earlier in the year, city records show. The absence of the bracing raises further questions about the safety of the construction work.
Three structural engineers who reviewed the engineering documents, known as “support of excavation” plans, said they were surprised to see that the buildings department approved the measures without the additional structural support, which can help prevent adjoining buildings from collapsing when excavation work is done.
“That’s a recipe for disaster,” said Abi Agheyere, a structural engineer and a professor at Drexel University. “You have to have shoring.”
Agheyere said the extra precaution should have been taken due to the age of the 94-year-old building, which sat atop a rubble foundation. A preconstruction plan drafted by the engineering firm Quiver League and submitted to the Department of Buildings also described the building facade next to the construction site as in “poor condition with noticeable cracks.”
Quiver’s report notes that its inspectors lacked detailed information about the apartment building’s foundation and other structural features, and that they were only able to assess the building from the sidewalk and other adjoining properties.
Quiver engineer Sepehr Rezaeimalek prepared the report. He did not respond to a phone message Friday.
Chris Cerino, past president of the Structural Engineers Association of New York, said he would have expected to see additional bracing in the drawings, or “underpinning” to support the foundation of the collapsed apartment building.
“I would have anticipated a different detail on that side of the site,” Cerino said in a text message after reviewing the plans.
Department of Buildings spokesperson Andrew Rudansky said the support strategy depicted in the approved plans is “standard industry practice” and that “similar excavation designs have been safely performed at other work sites across the city for decades.”
Rudansky also said the project engineer — in this case, Jieming Wang of LMW Engineering — is responsible for making sure the plans are safe for construction before submitting them to the buildings department.
“Upon that confirmation by the design professional engineer, plans go through a full plan exam at the DOB,” he said.
Rudansky said the department completed the full exam and found the designs complied with city requirements. He said investigators are now conducting additional reviews, with a special focus on the project’s “geotechnical report,” which evaluated the soil and rock at the construction site before excavation work began. The engineer who prepared the report, Michael Karantinidis of International Geotechnical/Structural Laboratories Inc., did not immediately respond to a message left at his office.
Rudansky did not say what was supposed to support the building that collapsed between excavation and pouring a new foundation at the construction site.
An excavation plan approved by the city's Department of Buildings did not require additional bracing along the perimeter where the apartment building stood.
Department of Buildings
Wang submitted the excavation plans for approval in December 2025. At the time, the owner of 2625 Bedford Ave., a limited liability company tied to Robert Fischman and Judy Swimer, sought to construct a three-story apartment building on the site. The development team later submitted a new plan in September to build a nine-story complex, but the Department of Buildings had not yet approved the revised project proposal.
A person who answered the phone at Wang’s office extension Friday immediately hung up.
Buildings records indicate that special inspector MD Islam was contracted to monitor excavation. Records updated Thursday said Islam had requested to withdraw from the project after the building collapsed.
Islam did not respond to requests for comment or emailed questions about the withdrawal.
In the immediate wake of the catastrophe, the city’s Department of Buildings issued a full stop work order. A comment on its online portal attributed the collapse “to unsafe construction operations.” The agency later deleted the comment, Crain’s reported Thursday.
The Department of Buildings is investigating the cause of the collapse alongside the city’s Department of Investigation and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. The city is also conducting sweep inspections at building sites across the city where the same contractors have conducted work. On Friday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the inquiry had expanded to 160 properties involving six different entities.
A cross-section view of the excavation plans beside the foundation of the apartment building that collapsed Wednesday.
Department of Buildings
The edge of the now-collapsed building at 1321 Flatbush Ave. was the only location in the construction site where the engineering plans did not require steel supports.
Agheyere said the beams add another layer of protection against collapse.
“There's nothing that stops it from spreading right into the hole,” he said.
Another engineer who reviewed the plans said steel reinforcement is not always required to support an adjacent building if excavation is done properly.
“As long as you're not digging under the foundation, you don’t necessarily have to put up steel or additional measures,” said Eugene Gurevich, from the firm RAND Engineering & Architecture.
He likened the structure of a building to a ladder, with two parallel sides serving as feet and wooden joists, framing and floors as the handholds.
“One leg of the ladder was kicked out from under it and pulled the whole ladder down,” he said.
In an interview, Carpenter’s Union Executive Secretary-Treasurer Paul Capurso said construction crews may have dug too deeply to prepare for a potential nine-story building, rather than the three-story structure approved by the buildings department.
“There is potential they could have changed their design on the fly,” Capurso said.
Tagged
Zohran Mamdani
brooklyn
building collapse
housing
new york city
David Brand
David is a reporter covering housing for Gothamist and WNYC. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 908-310-3960.
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