Riverwalk developer will hire fire officials

As window glaziers and roofers labored over one building damaged in the immense Aug. 13 blaze in Conshohocken, developer J. Brian O'Neill said yesterday that he would hire local fire officials as consultants when rebuilding the structure where the fire started.

Glaziers (from left) Michael Falasca, Matt Baxter and Tom Nailly, install a replacement window in Millennium Three, the office building next to the partially-built Riverwalk apartment complex that went up in flames last month in Conshohocken. Millennium Three needed 107 windows and 8 metal frames replaced due to the extreme heat of the fire next door. Not much has been done to the fire-damaged apartment buildings, which can be seen out the windows. (Clem Murray / Inquirer)Read more

by Derrick Nunnally, Inquirer Staff Writer

Published Sept. 4, 2008, 3:01 a.m. ET

O'Neill said he was in talks with Conshohocken firefighters about cooperating to redesign the Stables at Millennium. The five-story building was under construction when welding debris kindled the eight-alarm fire.

He called getting input from firefighters "one of the things we'll do different" in rebuilding. The construction will require demolishing the damaged concrete and steel remnants of the Stables.

O'Neill, who has vowed to rebuild since the night of the fire, said he would make a formal announcement of his plans "within the next three weeks," and declined to say which new fire-safety elements were on the table.

"We'll be making a full disclosure to everybody at the time decisions are made," O'Neill said by telephone. "It's a collective effort."

Conshohocken Fire Chief Robert Phipps said he would discuss recommendations with other members of his department. Town officials have said that O'Neill complied with building codes, but two lawsuits have been filed since the fire, claiming the builder was negligent.

"That's why we have lawyers," O'Neill said in his only comment on the lawsuits.

He maintained that the buildings "functioned perfectly" in the fire, that "98 percent of the apartments are still intact," and that evacuation went as well as possible.

"Those buildings did exactly what they were supposed to do," O'Neill said.

Workers on the scene this week are finishing external work on the Millennium Three building, the site of rush repairs after the fire to restore the operations of CardioNet, a wireless medical-technology company.

By the Monday after the fire, interior renovations to the pacemaker-management company's quarters that "under ordinary circumstances would have taken three to six months" were finished, O'Neill said.

Crews working on the Millennium Three exterior - the only construction workers at the site yesterday afternoon - will have the roof, windows and other elements "newer than . . . ever" within three days, O'Neill said.

A spokeswoman for JPMorgan Asset Management Holdings, which owns the scorched Riverwalk at Millennium apartment complex where hundreds were displaced, said no decision had been made public about rebuilding plans.