Garrett Andrews//July 10, 2017//
Andersen Construction‘s foray into the San Francisco Bay Area suffered a catastrophic setback early Friday as a four-alarm fire claimed a five-story project being built by the Portland contractor.
, in downtown Oakland, California, later that day to determine if it was the by activists opposing gentrification.
The blaze was reported at 4:50 a.m. Friday, and more than 80 firefighters responded to the construction site.
The development, named , was unoccupied, though about 700 nearby residents were evacuated during the response. The fire was declared under control by 8 a.m. No injuries were reported.
The 302,000-square-foot market-rate project has drawn criticism from housing-affordability advocates.
Andersen’s business development manager, Todd Duwe, said the firm is waiting to learn more from authorities.
鈥淲e’ve got teams down there now, executives on site,鈥 he said. 鈥淲e’ll provide more information as it becomes available, but we just don’t know very much at this time.鈥
Videos taken by witnesses show Andersen’s tower crane spinning uncontrolled above a fully flame-engaged building. The danger of it collapsing into nearby buildings caused authorities to evacuate nearby buildings.
The $60 million Alta Waverly had five floors of wood framing over a post-tensioned concrete platform. It was to have 196 residential units, 212 parking spaces and 31,500 square feet of commercial retail space on the ground floor.
Andersen was invited by Atlanta-based developer Wood Partners to serve as construction manager-general contractor after the firms worked together to build Block 17 in the Pearl District and the Dimension tower in Seattle.
To help contend with the labor shortage in the Bay Area, Andersen brought along trusted subcontractors for the project.
The project was designed by Oakland firm Pyatok.