Apartment owners faced with any major renovation, repair or alteration of their building are often concerned with the impacts construction could have on their tenants — and whether the work will require added expenses.

These extra costs can include paying for additional precautions to minimize impacts, establishing alternative parking when assigned spaces are unavailable, and, in very unusual cases, covering the costs for tenants to move to other living quarters until construction is done.

Designing Projects with Tenants in Mind

A properly engineered seismic retrofit project can be the difference between keeping tenants in their homes and paying for their relocation.

A good engineer should be able to design your retrofit with minimal disruptions to tenants.

It’s a very rare to have to move a tenant for a soft-story retrofit. Permanent relocation in some jurisdictions is required when work creates an uninhabitable condition for 30 days or more, or if the construction takes 30 days longer than the original completion date.

Be sure your project is engineered to minimize impacts on tenants.

Verify Experience with Tenant Habitability

Given the potential cost of having to relocate tenants while the retrofit is being done —Optimum Seismic, a leading retrofit and renovation construction company, advises all soft-story apartment owners to ask about impacts to tenants when getting a bid for a project. Retrofit construction, in most instances, should not significantly disrupt quality of life for your tenants.

Some potential questions to ask include:

  • What is the overall time frame of the project?
  • What hours do you intend to work?
  • What is your plan for accommodating tenants during construction?
  • Will my tenants be able to park in their usual spots at night while the project is ongoing?

In all instances, it’s important to find a contractor that can do the work with minimal disruption, maintain a safe and tidy construction area, and keep parking areas operational before and after regular business hours. Insist that trenches are covered with material strong enough to drive on.

All work areas should be cleaned daily. Tools and other potentially hazardous materials and items should be stored safely out of harm’s way.

Check with your city for information specific to tenant habitability requirements. Optimum Seismic prides itself on serving its clients well in this process, and we are happy to discuss it as a part of our free consultations