Soft-Story Retrofits for Building Resiliency
Creating Awareness, Education and Solutions for Soft-Story Retrofits Against Earthquakes
Soft-story structures, popular on the West Coast, are typically multi-story residential buildings built above a ground-level garage, tuck-under parking garage or a storefront. Their mixed use design often means wider openings and fewer partition walls on the first story than on the upper stories, leaving soft-story buildings structurally vulnerable in the event of a major earthquake. During the 1971 San Fernando, 1989 Loma Prieta and 1994 Northridge earthquakes, soft-story buildings sustained major damage or collapsed entirely.
For years, cities on the West Coast have recommended soft-story retrofits for thousands of residential structures to increase building resiliency. Cities such as San Francisco, Berkeley and Los Angeles have already passed laws that require a mandatory retrofit for certain soft-story residential buildings, and many other cities are following suit.
The soft-story retrofitting process may seem complicated, but we have provided information for each step along the way. Whether you are a building owner, engineer, architect, contractor or inspector, we have useful information to help you navigate your soft-story retrofit from the beginning stage of receiving a mandate letter to the latter stage of implementing a soft-story retrofit solution.
San Francisco
Understanding the San Francisco Ordinance and Retrofit Solutions - The Strong Frame® special moment frame: an ideal, safe and cost-effective solution
Los Angeles
Understanding the Los Angeles Ordinance and Retrofit Solutions - The Strong Frame® special moment frame: an ideal, safe and cost-effective solution
Navigate your soft-story retrofit project, from beginning to end, whatever your role
Soft-Story Retrofit Articles and News
With mandates and ordinances passed in a number of West Coast cities, soft-story retrofit headlines are more frequently seen in the news. Below are select articles on the topic that may be of interest.
The owners of nearly 500 "soft story" buildings missed a city deadline Friday to apply for permits to do seismic retrofitting work, a San Francisco building department official said today. Read full article.
Bay City News Service | S.F. Gate | 9/18/2017- LA Wants Updates On Earthquake Retrofit Compliance
Santa Monica Mirror | 4/11/2018 - LA City Council Committee Approves Exploration Of Seismic Retrofitting Fund
CBS Los Angeles | 3/19/2018 - 15,000 buildings need earthquake retrofitting in Los Angeles
Darsha Philips | ABC | 9/20/2017 - Santa Monica adopts nation's most extensive earthquake retrofit plan
Rong-Gong Lin II | Los Angeles Times | 3/29/2017 - Cole Valley's La Boulangerie Temporarily Closed For Seismic Retrofit
Walter Thompson | Hoodline | 1/5/2017 - Optimum Seismic Publishes Article on Earthquake Insurance and Retrofits
PRWeb | benzinga | 12/27/16 - Some 22,000 Rental Units in Oakland's 'Soft Story' Buildings Risk Collapse
Winston Cho | East Bay Express | 12/13/2016 - Making earthquake upgrades easier
Kevin Forestieri | Mountain View Voice | 11/16/2016 - 60% Of 'Soft Story' Buildings Are Not Earthquake Preparedness Compliant: See If Yours Is On This Map
Caleb Pershan | sfist | 10/27/2016 - FEMA funds retrofits for 27th anniversary of Loma Prieta quake
S.F. Examiner | 10/17/2016 - SF residential building owners slow on quake retrofits
J.K. Dineen | S.F. Chronicle | 7/27/2016 - 'Soft-story' building owners set to receive orders to complete a seismic retrofit
Chris Keller | SCPR | 5/3/2016 - Staying In Business: What To Do To Survive Soft-Story Seismic Retrofits
Shane Downing | Hoodline | 4/16/2016 - L.A. releases addresses of 13,500 apartments and condos likely to need earthquake retrofitting
Rosanna Xia and Jon Schleuss | Los Angeles Times | 4/15/2016 - Deadline for retrofitting S.F. buildings for quakes looms, with fines on the horizon.
Riley McDermid | S.F. Business Times | 07/27/2016 - Look at how apartments can collapse during an earthquake - Infographic
Raoul Rañoa, Rosanna Xia and Rong-Gong Lin II | Los Angeles Times | 10/6/2015
