Norristown Borough officials call their building a disaster. It claims the structure is so poor the building could tip and it's basically an inferno waiting to happen. Problems include exposed wire, wooden fire stairs, not metal as per code, and nonworking sprinkler system.
"At the meeting, we asked the engineers if they would stay here and they said if they were living here with their wife, they wouldn't stay another night, so we're moving out today," resident Matt Dieckhaus said.
The Borough is now suing the developer, Bruce Fazio, for building code violations.
"There's a bunch of problems with subs that we had and basically, the building went over budget by a million dollars and at the end of the day, we basically ran out of money," Fazio said.
But Fazio claims the building is safe and constructed according to plans he presented to code officials. If there are now violations, he says, it's on the Borough.
"That was a 3 year process, that wasn't built overnight. I had people from the Borough doing inspections probably once a week over there," Fazio said.
So how did the building get a certificate of occupancy and why weren't the issues addressed during construction?
Municipal administrator David Forrest said he didn't know.
"How we got to where we are today is something that we are investigating and I'm not going to be able to answer any questions about that until we know all the facts," Forrest said.
The Borough is expected to wrap up its investigation in two weeks. It will be presented to residents and the public.
