What we know about the CHOP garage collapse in Grays Ferry

The emergency response to Wednesday’s deadly parking garage collapse in Grays Ferry continued Thursday, as rescue crews remained on standby due to the structure’s instability.

Owned by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the seven-level parking garage, located at 30th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue, was under construction when it partially collapsed around 2:15 p.m. The incident left one person dead, injured two others, and two people were missing and presumed dead, officials said Thursday night.

Officials said four K-9 dogs were deployed at the scene and it was determined that the two missing people were dead. As a result, the city would proceed on Friday with a deconstruction of the garage to make it safe enough that personnel can remove the bodies, officials said. Demolition was set to begin Saturday morning.

Here is what we know:

The victims’ names have not been publicly announced. However, the person killed and the two who remain missing and presumed dead are members Philadelphia’s Iron Workers Union Local 401.

The Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO also expressed sympathy to members of the union.

“Nobody should ever leave for work and not make it home safely,” the group said in a statement. “We stand in solidarity with Ironworkers Local 401 and the entirety of the Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council during this incredibly difficult time.”

The person who died was rescued from the scene and taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 3:03 p.m. The two people injured were rescued, treated, and released.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker confirmed at a Wednesday news conference that two people remained unaccounted for. Parker said Thursday night that the missing individuals were presumed dead.

Parker on Wednesday said the garage was being assembled with precast concrete when a roof segment in the structure “failed” and collapsed straight down through every level of the building. Workers at the time were in the process of installing the garage’s floor decking and roof segments.

The project is being handled by HSC Builders and Construction Managers of Exton, and its subcontractor is the Ohio-based firm Precast Services Inc., Parker said. All necessary permits for construction were obtained, and all inspections were up to date.

Blue Bell-based planning and design firm THA Consulting, which worked on plans for the garage, declined to comment.

Precast concrete is a widely used material in parking garages and bridges, said said Abieyuwa Aghayere, professor of structural engineering at Drexel University. It can speed up construction without harming the quality of the structures it is used in, and is not a “corner cutting-exercise,” he added.

The city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections, however, outsources precast concrete project inspections because they are highly specialized. For the garage, a local branch of GAI Construction Monitoring Services was tasking with regular inspections of the concrete. Neither GAI nor Precast Services Inc. immediately responded to a request for comment.

“It’s just because many hands are in the cookie jar here, quality control at every stage of that has to be assured, so that collapse doesn’t happen,” said Aghayere.

» READ MORE: Failure of precast concrete roof is suspected to have triggered Grays Ferry parking garage collapse

Because the building partially collapsed, it remains unstable, and is unsafe for first responders to conduct their work. The operation, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Jeffrey W. Thompson said Wednesday, was “going to take time.”

“We have to very carefully and methodically deconstruct this building for the safety of the people working on it, and ultimately for the safety of the first responders who will continue to search,” Thompson said.

Rescue crews Thursday were working to assess and stabilize the building under the direction of structural engineers in order to prevent further collapse. That approach is designed to protect trapped workers as well as emergency responders attempting to reach them.

To that end, additional crews and heavy equipment began arriving Thursday morning, including machines and workers with Pennsylvania Urban Search and Rescue. The building, said Glenn Corbett, an associate professor of fire science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and former member of the federal advisory committee of the construction safety team that investigated the World Trade Center disaster, must be treated as though it is precariously holding together.

“This is effectively a house of cards,” he said. “If you remove one wrong piece of the collapsed area, it could cause the rest of the building to come down on top of it.”

» READ MORE: Unstable building slows the search effort for 2 missing workers in collapsed Grays Ferry garage

Several eyewitnesses described hearing a loud thud or boom at the time of the collapse.

“It shook our home,” said Grady Fields, who lives about two blocks from the construction site. “I wasn’t sure what was going on.

Some witnessed workers fleeing from the building as chunks of debris fell from the structure. One person who worked the shopping center across the street, who asked not to be named because he did not have his employer’s permission to speak to reporters, said he saw firefighters carrying out an immobilized man.

“They got to him pretty quick,” he said, “but he looked bad.”

Planned by CHOP as a 300,000-square-foot structure that would fit 1,005 parking spaces, the garage has drawn criticism and concern from some community members, city planners, and environmentalists. In a Civic Design Review Committee meeting in May, plans for the garage were roundly opposed.

“It’s just hard to cotton that this extremely wealthy, extremely well-positioned institution has decided that 1,000 cars should go off campus … and contribute to all the negative impacts of traffic to that neighborhood,” Dan Garofalo, vice chair of the committee, said in May.

CHOP purchased the site where the garage was being constructed in 2024 for almost $25 million, and Garofalo estimated costs for building the structure as high as $100 million. Critics said the garage and the construction associated with it would disrupt street parking in the neighborhood, and create an eyesore in the area.

Others noted that the garage was not necessary, given SEPTA transit routes in the region, as well as a 2023 Planning Commission report that said University City parking capacity was less than three-quarters utilized.

“This 1,000-unit parking garage looks like something that would be built in King of Prussia, a suburban location where there’s absolutely no transit,” said Will Tung, an organizer with urban advocacy group 5th Square.