A Fishtown pizza shop and part of a North Philly apartment building collapsed within minutes
Key Pizza, a beloved neighborhood pizza shop, collapsed less than two hours before it was scheduled to open. In Logan, about 100 residents were displaced when their building partially collapsed.
The collapse of a beloved neighborhood pizza shop and the partial collapse of an apartment building Wednesday — just minutes apart — are the latest in a series that has racked the city as it contends with a shortage of building inspectors.
The two incidents brought down the neighborhood institution Key Pizza in Fishtown and displaced about 100 people from their apartments in Logan between 9:30 and 10 a.m. No one was injured in either collapse, and while their causes remain under investigation, the back-to-back incidents have renewed concerns about the city’s ability to keep tabs on both new construction projects and existing residential buildings.
L&I has previously acknowledged that well over 1,000 structures collapse on an annual basis in Philadelphia, though officials could not provide current figures. And some 2,000 more are added to the list of properties deemed “imminently dangerous,” although that list’s size is dynamic.
In Fishtown on Wednesday, Key Pizza collapsed less than two hours before the shop was scheduled to open. Police said no one was in the building.
First responders, fire crews, and officials from the Department of Licenses and Inspections slowly assessed the wreckage of the three-story building at Memphis and York Streets, which by 10 a.m. had been reduced to a few stray columns of brick and exposed wires. The still-closed commercial roll-up door remained standing.
Neighbors like Ken Wood blamed a backhoe parked at the adjoining property, which had been doing excavation work after a building demolition earlier this year.
“They tore down a building eight months ago,” said Wood, a longtime neighbor and self-described development watchdog, “but they just came back within a few weeks to start excavating.”
City records indicate the property next to Key Pizza had been purchased in 2020. Last year, the Florida-based shell company behind the development submitted plans for a three-story building with a restaurant on the first floor and living units above. Demolition ended in May, but inspectors later cited the building’s owner for failing to secure an engineer or architect for the development. That issue was resolved last month, according to city records.
City inspectors also visited Key Pizza itself in July and cited the building for a “bulged front wall” and other violations that records indicate remained open on Wednesday.
Wood blamed the city for not doing more to crack down on developers.
“We’re one of the most overdeveloped neighborhoods in the city right now,” he said. “L&I can’t keep on top of it. No one can — and that’s what leads to things like this.”
Officials said inspectors from Licenses and Inspections were evaluating whether work at the adjacent property contributed to the collapse of the pizza shop.
A person who answered the phone for the Florida-based LLC behind the development hung up on an Inquirer reporter. A person who answered the phone number listed for the general contractor on the building permit, PASP LLC, denied any involvement with the project. Phone calls also went unanswered to the designers listed on the building permit — one of whom is Plato Marinakos, the architect hired to oversee the razing of a Center City building that led to the fatal 2013 collapse of the Salvation Army Thrift Store.
Karen Holzwarth, a neighbor to the pizza shop for 43 years, said she showed up minutes after the collapse.
”My daughter used to work there,” Holzwarth said. She said crews had been operating the backhoe near the excavated site in recent days. “Thank God no one was hurt.”
Residents described Key as a neighborhood institution — a legacy hangout and eatery that had survived Fishtown’s transition from working-class to rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Adam Petroski, 22, who lives a few houses down, said the shop had been there since before he was born.
”I loved Key,” he said. “I would come here every day and just hang out. I hope they can rebuild it so we can have another Key.”
‘I’m not going back into that building’
Five miles away in the Logan section, Talana Winters, who lives on the second floor of the seven-story Lindley Towers apartment complex, had a “crazy morning.”
Around 9:30, her husband heard bricks hitting their air conditioner and immediately grabbed their 4-month-old daughter and fled. First responders would arrive to another crumbling building — a partial collapse that displaced about 100 residents, including Winters and her family.
“It’s very scary. I got a 4-month-old daughter. So what if she passed away? Then what? What is L&I, what is anybody going to do?” she said.
The debris from the facade of the building landed on Camac Street, according to a city spokesperson, who said no one was injured and the building was successfully evacuated.
A person who answered the phone at SBG Management, which manages the building, said SBG was aware of the partial collapse and “moving expeditiously to repair it.” Engineers and contractors were hired immediately to start making repairs, the person said.
Martin Michaels has lived in the apartments since 2013 and said the building had been plagued by issues such as squatters, vacant apartments, bedbugs, and renovations that had been planned but not completed.
“I really want to move out,” said Michaels, a sixth-floor resident.
Late Wednesday morning, Winters and dozens of other residents waited down the block in the late-summer warmth for answers. But she was clear about her family’s future at the apartment.
“I’m not going back into that building,” she said.
According to the city, no one will be going back until an engineer has evaluated the exterior of the building, overhead shelter protection has been installed at entrances and exits, and additional areas of danger have been addressed.
L&I records show the towers had been cited almost 200 times since 2007. A city spokesperson said none of the open cases were structural in nature.
Red Cross workers arrived in the early afternoon, handing out water and snacks to residents waiting to get some belongings. A reception area for displaced residents was set up at the Holy Trinity-Bethlehem Presbyterian Church.
Inquirer Researcher Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this article.
Clarification: This article was updated to clarify the number of structure collapses and the number of properties deemed “imminently dangerous” each year in Philadelphia.