116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Davenport official called 911 about building the day before it collapsed
City says 3 people unaccounted for, may be buried in the rubble
DAVENPORT — The day before the Davenport Building collapsed, a downtown development official called 911 to voice concern about the stability of a wall of the apartment building.
Tony Behncke, operations director for the Downtown Davenport Partnership, said one of his employees called him on Saturday and, when Behncke couldn’t reach city officials, he called 911.
Behncke said his employee had talked to Ryan Shaffer, who runs a masonry business and had submitted a bid to the building’s owner earlier this year to shore it up and fix it. The owner thought the bid was too high and found another company to repair the century-old building, but Schaffer was so concerned about the building at 324 Main St. that he frequently checked on it.
On Saturday, Shaffer shared his concern with a Downtown Davenport Partnership employee cleaning up trash in the alley. The worker called Behncke, his boss.
Behncke said he called his city contact and the fire station but didn’t reach anyone, likely due to the holiday weekend. He called 911 at 2:46 p.m. Saturday to make a non-emergency report — a little more than 24 hours before the building partially collapsed around 5 p.m. Sunday.
Behncke told the Quad-City Times he understood from the worker the building’s facade was crumbling and that was the safety concern. Behncke said he did not believe at the time the building was in danger of coming down.
Behncke told the dispatcher one of his crew members had noticed the wall was “bulging out,” adding the building was being repaired..
"Someone was there working on it and told him to get out of the way because it was not looking good. I don't know if fire might want to stop by and see," he said. "Just in case, I'd rather have someone stop and look at it."
The call log confirmed the fire department was at the building at 2:51 p.m. and left at 2:55 p.m.
Task force search
Authorities on Friday said an Iowa task force had completed its search for survivors at the apartment building without finding three missing people, who are feared dead.
The focus now has shifted to shoring up the structure so recovery efforts can begin.
The remnants of the six-story apartment building were constantly in motion in the first 24 to 36 hours after it collapsed Sunday, which officials said posed a risk to rescuers who were trying to search for survivors.
“We do what the building tells us to do,” Rick Halleran, the task force’s Cedar Rapids division chief, said of the delay in searching the building.
City officials earlier this week said that Brandon Colvin, Ryan Hitchcock and Daniel Prien were unaccounted for and had "high probability of being home at the time of the collapse.” All three have since been listed in the National Database of Missing Persons.
The state task force was mobilized and on site to first search for survivors and then secure the structure, Halleran said. He said the search for survivors was completed Thursday evening after electrical equipment connected to the building was controlled.
The state’s search and rescue team, search dogs and cameras were used in the sweep.
Officials fear the unstable building will eventually collapse on its own. Adding to the challenge is a giant pile of brick and steel at the base of the building that is helping to hold up the structure but also may contain the remains of people killed in the collapse.
“We are doing the best we can to balance the building conditions and the safety of our responders,” Davenport Fire Chief Mike Carlsten said.
He said conditions have forced a response that may take “days and weeks” instead of what ideally would have been minutes or hours after the collapse.
Mayor Mike Matson has said the debris pile “could be a place of rest for some of the unaccounted” and stressed the city would be sensitive about those remains, comparing work at the site to an archaeological dig.
Warnings on record
Work to bring down the building comes amid questions about why neither the owner nor city officials warned residents about potential danger even after a structural engineer’s report issued last week indicated a wall of the century-old structure was at imminent risk of crumbling.
Documents released Wednesday night show city officials and the building's owner were warned for months that parts of the building were unstable.
“Do I have regrets about this tragedy and about people potentially losing their lives? Hell, yeah. Do I think about this every moment? Hell, yeah,” Matson, the mayor, said Thursday. “I have regrets about a lot of things. Believe me, we’re going to look at that.”
City officials said Thursday they did not order an evacuation because they relied on the engineer’s assurances that the building remained safe. Matson promised to improve inspections and to investigate what happened.
After the building collapse, rescue crews pulled seven people from the building in their initial response and escorted out 12 others who could walk on their own. Later, two more people were rescued, including a woman who was removed from the fourth floor several hours after authorities said they were going to begin setting up for demolition.
Davenport Police Chief Jeff Bladel said transient people also often entered the building but there was no indication anyone else was inside and missing.
Andrew Wold, the building’s owner, released a statement Tuesday saying “our thoughts and prayers are with our tenants."
He has made no statement since then, and efforts to reach him, his company and a man believed to be his attorney have been unsuccessful. County records show his Davenport Hotel L.L.C. acquired the building in 2021 for $4.2 million.
Tenants had complained to the city in recent years about a host of problems they say were ignored by property managers, including no heat or hot water for weeks or even months at a time, as well as mold and water leakage from ceilings and toilets.
While city officials tried to address some complaints and gave vacate orders to individual apartments, a broader evacuation was never ordered, records show.
Official resigns
City officials ordered repairs after they found seven fire code violations Feb. 6. However, they were told three weeks later by building maintenance officials that “none of the work was completed,” records show.
Rich Oswald, the city’s director of development and neighborhood services, confirmed Thursday that the city’s chief building official, Trishna Pradhan, resigned in the aftermath of the collapse. The city said that Pradhan resigned voluntarily.
Pradhan had visited the building May 25 and erroneously reported it had “passed” an inspection in notes in the city’s online permitting system, Oswald said.
Pradhan attempted to change the inspection result to “incomplete” Tuesday — after the collapse — but a technical glitch instead listed the outcome as “failed,” he said. Oswald said the “incomplete” status is the correct status since the repair work was unfinished.
Calls and text messages to Pradhan were not immediately returned.
Assistant City Attorney Brian Heyer said he is unaware if the city had considered earlier civil enforcement action to protect residents. Only after the collapse did the city file a civil infraction seeking a $300 fine against Wold for failing to maintain the structure in a safe manner. Wold will be required to pay for the cost of demolition, Heyer said.
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