Charter Oak Suites Inspected

University, State Inspectors Find Safety Features To Be Adequate

By: Regina Forker

Posted: 8/31/05

After inspections yesterday morning, Charter Oak Suites have been deemed livable for the time being.

According to Vice President for Public and Environmental Safety Robert Hudd, state and UConn building inspectors and fire marshals inspected the complex to "see if it had enough safety features for people to keep living in it."

The inspection focused mainly on the sprinkler system, which was thought to be inadequate for the size of the building. The building, according to Hudd, is "a little over 61 feet tall," and therefore required a state inspection though none was done when the building first opened in 2003.

The results of the inspection found that the building does have enough safety features, and students will be allowed to continue living in them for the rest of the semester.

Hudd said they would keep firefighters on watch indefinitely.

"There will be two firefighters there 24 hours a day," Hudd said.

According to an article in The Hartford Courant Tuesday, Deputy State Fire Marshal John Blaschik said Charter Oak Suites do not have sprinklers in the attic or in other places where people aren't living, such as walls between ceilings and floors, which are required by the state building code.

According to Hudd, the plan for what will be done to the building will be ready within a day or two.

"Then we're going to move as rapidly as humanly possible to get the heat detectors in the attic, and then as fast as humanly possibly to get a sprinkler system in the attic," he said.

Even after a sprinkler system and heat detectors are installed in the building, it still will not be up to state code, according to Hudd.

"We'll hire a design professional to come up with a plan to get the building up to code," Hudd said.

Though Hudd said it's hard to say what else will have to be done to rectify the building situation, there are still issues with fire walls and fire doors. The construction that must take place has to be done while people aren't living in the facility.

Hudd said he hasn't gone back to look at why these problems weren't addressed when the building was being built.

"We have to review them now and make sure that going forward they're safe," he said.

According to Hudd, before a building opens, a plan review, or a review of the building drawings, is done.

"A review of the building clearly wasn't done here, or at least wasn't done properly," Hudd said.

Charter Oak Suites were designed by Grant Associates of Baltimore, Md., and built by JPI of Texas.

According to Hudd, this particular violation was found after University President Philip Austin asked the Department of Public and Environmental Safety to review all the buildings that had been built under the UCONN2000 program, particularly those that people were living in.

After getting the plans for the buildings and reviewing them, Hudd said they "found similar problems in various buildings. Our architect wasn't comfortable with the way the building was built."

According to University Spokeswoman Karen Grava, Charter Oak Suites has a total of 221 units and approximately 650 students are currently living there. They are mostly six-person units and the students are mostly upperclassmen.