Who will pay for the possible millions in repairs at Rochester Towers?

Jun 23, 2023

ROCHESTER — The question of who is going to pay for potentially $4 million to repair two or three columns in the troubled Rochester Towers haunts David Barnett, whose family owns five of the 94 condominium units in the downtown building.

Barnett, who lives separately in Rochester, owns two units in the building at 207 Fifth Ave. SW. His parents own two and his aunt also owns a unit. His parents are now living with him full-time, after being abruptly evacuated two weeks ago due to structural concerns about crumbling columns.

“We set this up as a retirement home in a good downtown spot for my parents, after their house burned down five years ago. Now we don’t know what will happen,” he said. “It is a frustrating time. The lack of information has been incredibly sad.”

He described generally how the structural issues that spurred the evacuation were discovered.

Workers were re-caulking windows in the 54-year-old tower, when one noticed some crumbling on a structural column. That spurred the Towers homeowners association to bring in experts to inspect the columns, which led to the discovery of the problems that drove the evacuation.

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Barnett said early estimates have put the cost to repair one column at $1 million to $1.5 million. There could be up to three columns that need repair. Crews are still inspecting the building to determine what needs to be done to make it safe.

No matter what the final repair bill adds up to, it is unknown from where the money to pay that bill will come.

“Personal insurance firms say your unit is OK, so they aren’t paying. The HOA insurance says the building is still standing, so it’s not paying,” he said. “There’s no way that the unit owners can ever pay for this. I’m hoping that somehow there might be state funding or local funding to help.”

This week residents had their first opportunity to return to their units to retrieve more essentials in an allotted 45-minute time frame.

While many of the residents own their units and have lived there for years, some people hadn’t even been in the building long enough to receive mail.

Omar Yaman, who just arrived in Rochester for work, had literally moved into Towers the day before the evacuation.

“I'm pretty efficient with my unpacking and packing. So as soon as I got there, in a matter of 24 hours, I was fully unpacked. I did some grocery shopping, ordered some Amazon stuff that's supposed to be delivered over the weekend,” he said. “And then Friday at 5 p.m., I had to repack in about 30 minutes.”

Barnett said many of the displaced residents feel forgotten as Mayo Clinic and the city have not reached out to offer even emotional support. He estimates at least half of the people living in the tower work for or are retired from Mayo Clinic.

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“If a neighborhood of 90 houses had this issue instead of 90 condos, I feel the reaction would be very different,” he added.

Some residents have been unhappy with the limited communication so far from FirstService Residential, the firm that manages the Towers Condominium for the unit owners. FirstService, which works with more than 8,600 communities across North America, took over the management of the property in 2022.

Rochester-based Paramark previously managed it for years prior to FirstService, according to Barnett.

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