Condo manager says 520 construction is cracking their walls

Vibrations from construction on the 520 bridge are causing cracks in nearby condominiums, says a building manager in the Madison Park neighborhood.

“They’re like splits in between plasterboard, most of them. Then there are a couple of the front units that have walls where there is a little bit of separation between where the ceiling and the wall meet,” says Don Morgan, resident manager of Canterbury Shores in Madison Park.

Morgan tells KIRO Radio’s Tom and Curley Show that before the work began, the Washington State Department of Transportation came by Canterbury Shores to document the state units were in prior to any construction.

“WSDOT has been through the whole building and taken pictures of about half the units and all the common areas,” says Morgan. “They’ve set up vibration monitors in the front of the building and one inside the building. Then they’ve taken pictures with a new camera they have that shows if the building moves or doesn’t move.”

Since work started on pilings near the bridge span, which Morgan says is about 200 feet off their dock, he says he’s been receiving calls from the building’s residents reporting issues.

“These [cracks] are directly from the pilings that are being driven in,” says Morgan.

Morgan says WSDOT told them they will pay for any damages that come as a result of this phase of the construction, which is expected to conclude in February.

“So new ones [cracks] we can actually report,” says Morgan. “They would pay to have those fixed.”

In addition to the evaluations done by WSDOT, Morgan says they’re also hiring outside engineers to take a look at any damage.

“We just hired some engineers of our own last week to basically take a look at the infrastructure and do something so that we have our own people, and our own conclusions coming on it.”

So far, Morgan says residents aren’t overly outraged.

“I think it sounds like the state is being responsible to them by coming by and taking pictures,” says KIRO Radio host John Curley. “They want to do everything they can because they don’t want to end up with a lawsuit.”