HousingWire | FEATURE | Manhattan project contractor error eyed in conversion collapse

• July 22nd, 2026

ATLANTA – ( HousingWire) A partial building collapse in New York City may more likely be explained by contractor error than from inherent risks in large-scale office-to-residential conversions. An engineer on the former Pfizer headquarters conversion told Gothamist that workers failed to reinforce columns as designed. The columns buckled and prompted evacuations across seven Manhattan Midtown East blocks.

The incident raised questions about the viability of office-to-residential conversions not just in New York City but nationwide. If contractor error caused it, that would take some of the heat off safety and feasibility concerns about large conversions. New York City officials are still investigating the failed columns.

Despite the new, narrowed evidence around the New York City project, the episode highlights the complexity of conversions and the challenges that can arise, regardless of a building’s age. Such problems will likely grow more common as states and cities push conversions to solve two problems: eliminating obsolete, vacant office buildings – and the lost real estate value associated with them – and adding housing supply.

Most conversions have involved 1950s and older office buildings. But the drive to add housing supply has pulled newer buildings into the mix, some just 20 years old. COVID-19-induced remote and hybrid work models rendered many office buildings obsolete.

“Older ones – because the floor plates are narrower, especially the ones that were designed before electric lighting or before HVAC – are always going to be better because they have more light,” Patrick Chopson, principal architect with Atlanta-based firm Cove, told HousingWire.