One Meridian Plaza
Encyclopedia
One Meridian Plaza was a 38-story
high-rise office building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, United States. The 492 feet (150 m) tower was designed by Vincent Kling & Associates
and completed in 1972. The building was demolished
in 1999 as a result of damage of a fire that began on February 23, 1991. The fire began on the 22nd floor after linseed oil
soaked rags ignited a blaze that raged out of control for hours. Philadelphia firefighters
fought the blaze, but struggled due to a lack of power in the skyscraper and insufficient water pressure from the building's standpipes. Three firefighters died in the twelve alarm fire
after becoming disoriented by heavy smoke. Firefighting efforts inside One Meridian Plaza eventually were abandoned due to fears the structure would collapse. The fire was only brought under control once it reached the 30th floor which was one of the few floors that had automatic sprinklers installed. Ten sprinklers held back the fire until it started burning itself out and was finally brought under control almost a full day after it started. The blaze seriously damaged the building destroying eight floors and damaged neighboring buildings.
For eight years after the fire, One Meridian Plaza sat vacant and damaged right in center of Philadelphia's business district. The building was caught in litigation between the owners and the insurance company over how much the insurers would pay the owners and how repairs or demolition would proceed. Businesses near the empty high-rise closed or moved and the city sued the owners to do something with the building. After lawsuits were settled, the building was declared a total loss and began to be dismantled in 1998. At the time of its deconstruction in 1999, One Meridian Plaza was the third tallest destroyed building in the world.
high-rise office building designed by Vincent Kling & Associates
. Construction on the 492 feet (150 m) tower began in 1968, was completed in 1972 and approved for occupancy in 1973. Built at the corner of 15th Street and South Penn Square in Center City, Philadelphia
, Pennsylvania
, the US$40 million high-rise was built adjacent to the Girard Trust Building, now the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia
, and the front faced Philadelphia City Hall
across the street. The rectangular One Meridian Plaza was 243 feet (74.1 m) long and 92 feet (28 m) wide and contained 756000 square feet (70,234.7 m²). Of the 38 floors, 36 were occupiable and 2 were mechanical floor
s. The structure also had 3 underground levels. The building's structure was composed of steel and concrete and the facade
was a granite
curtain wall
. There were two helipad
s on the roof. One Meridian Plaza's eastern stairwell connected the building to the adjacent Girard Trust Building. At one point there were plans to build a structure on the south side of One Meridian Plaza that would share one of the elevator banks in the high-rise, but nothing came of the plans mainly due to neither site having the same owner. On the northwest corner of the property is a bronze sculpture called "Triune." Designed by Robert Engman
the abstract sculpture was not damaged in the 1991 fire and is still there.
When One Meridian Plaza was built Philadelphia was enforcing a building code from 1949 that made no distinction between high-rises and other buildings. In 1984 Philadelphia adopted new codes that required automatic sprinkler systems in all new buildings. At the time of construction, sprinklers were only built on the service levels below ground. In 1988 plans were put in place to have automatic sprinklers placed throughout the building by November 1993. By 1991 four floors were completely protected by sprinklers and in part on three other floors. The sprinklers had been installed during floor renovations at the request of tenants and the building's owners had plans to install more as other floors were renovated.
The high-rise was originally known as the Fidelity Mutual Life Building, named for Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Co. who developed the building in a joint venture with Girard Bank
. The high-rise was the tallest building built in Philadelphia since the early 1930s. Girard Bank sold its share of the property, which was also known as Three Girard Plaza, to Fidelity Mutual Life in 1982. Fidelity Mutual Life, which had moved its offices out of the building to Radnor Township, Pennsylvania
earlier that year, subsequently sold the building to E/R Partners in 1983. A joint venture of the Rubin Organization and Equitable Life Assurance Company of America, E/R Partners bought the property for US$143 million. In 1989 a Dutch pension fund
, Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds
, paid US$120 million to enter E/R Partners with a sixty-five percent stake in the building. In 1984 Three Girard Plaza became the Three Mellon Bank Center after Girard Bank was bought by Mellon Bank
, and in 1990 was renamed again to One Meridian Plaza after Meridian Bank replaced Mellon Bank as the lead tenant. Another major tenant was Comcast
, who made 81000 square feet (7,525.1 m²) of One Meridian Plaza its corporate headquarters
in 1989.
on the floor. The linseed oil oxidized and generated enough heat to ignite the rags which then set fire to other solvent
s nearby. Smoke detectors did not cover the entire floor and by the time the fire alarm went off the fire was already well established. After the fire alarm sounded in the building the engineer went up to the 22nd floor to investigate. When the elevator reached the 22nd floor the engineer found heavy smoke and heat which prevented him from reaching the elevator controls he needed to return to the lobby
. The engineer escaped after radioing to a security guard in the lobby to recall the elevator using fire safety controls there. The second security guard was on the 30th floor when the alarm went off and used the stairwell to get to the ground floor.
The lobby guard returned a call to the alarm monitoring service which had called when the alarm initially went off to confirm that there was a fire, but never called the Philadelphia Fire Department
. The first call came from someone on the street who saw smoke coming from the building. During the first 911
call, at about 8:27 PM, the alarm company alerted the fire department to the fire. Engine 43 was the first firefighting unit
to arrive at the scene and reported seeing heavy smoke and flames in one of the windows. As firefighters started fighting the fire it had grown with flames breaking through windows and lapping up the side of the building.
never began producing electricity, and despite efforts to restore power the building was without electricity for the entirety of the event. This forced firefighters to work in darkness and without the aid of elevators. In addition, the transformers that provided power to the neighboring Girard Trust Building were in the basement of One Meridian Plaza. The transformers were eventually shut down due to water accumulation in the basement and firefighters directing water streams from that building had to do so without the aid of elevators.
Firefighters were again hampered when it was discovered the pressure release valves
on the standpipes were improperly adjusted when installed in the building. The Philadelphia Fire Department nozzles allowed 100 psi
nozzle pressure while One Meridian Plaza's pressure release valves were giving less than 60 psi discharge pressure, which was not sufficient to fight the fire. It was several hours into the fire before a technician who could adjust the valves arrived at the scene.
The area around the building was cleared of pedestrians and firefighting personnel because of falling glass and debris. The falling debris was dangerous for firefighters because they often had to cross the perimeter around the building to enter and leave the high-rise. Hose lines stretched into the building were damaged by falling debris and one firefighter was struck by debris and seriously injured while tending to the lines.
During the second hour of the fire it spread onto the 23rd and 24th floors. Heavy smoke was building up in the stairwells and a captain and two firefighters from Engine 11 were assigned to go to the top level to ventilate the stairwell. The three firefighters went up a center staircase from the 22nd floor and soon radioed that they were disoriented by heavy smoke on the 30th floor. There were attempts to direct the firefighters through the radio, and soon after the captain requested permission to break a window for ventilation, which was followed by a message that the captain was down. Permission to break the window was given and a search and rescue
effort was initiated.
Search teams were sent from the lower floors and searched the 30th floor, but did not find the missing firefighters. The teams then moved onto the upper levels where one team got lost on the 38th floor and ran out of air in their self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). That team was rescued by a search team that had been placed on the roof by a helicopter. Rescue attempts continued until helicopter operations were suspended due to heavy smoke and thermal
drafts caused by the blaze.
Using a searchlight the helicopter crew searched the exterior of the building and at 1:17 AM February 24, the helicopter spotted a broken window on the 28th floor located in an area that could not be seen from the street. At about 2:15 AM a rescue team was sent to the spot and found the three missing firefighters unconscious and out of air in their SCBAs. The firefighters were brought to a medical triage
set up on the 20th floor. There were attempts at resuscitation, but they were unsuccessful and the firefighters were pronounced dead.
Commissioner Roger Ulshafer and the building was completely evacuated by 7:30 AM. After the evacuation, the only fire suppression efforts left were water streams being directed to the building from the neighboring Girard Trust Building and One Centre Square.
The fire's spread only stopped when it reached the 30th floor which was the first fire affected floor to have automatic sprinklers. Ten sprinklers extinguished the fire on the 30th floor and prevented continued spread. Contained by the automatic sprinklers and running out of fuel, the fire was declared under control at 3:01 PM. The fire lasted over nineteen hours, destroyed eight floors, and killed three firefighters and injured twenty-four. Twelve alarms
were called which brought fifty-one engine companies, fifteen ladder companies, eleven specialized units, and over three hundred firefighters. The fire caused an estimated US$100 million in direct property loss.
of the steel frame caused some of the granite panels to be dislodged from the building's facade. The streets and buildings around One Meridian Plaza were closed and cordoned off. The 20-story Morris Building and several three-story shops behind One Meridian Plaza on Chestnut Street
were damaged by falling debris and sat unused for years until they were demolished in 2000. The neighboring Girard Trust Building, then called Two Mellon Plaza, experienced extensive water damage forcing the closure of the building. A bank in the building reopened a month later but the rest of the tower remained vacant for years. The roads around the building were closed for months after the fire, including a portion of two of Philadelphia's major streets, Broad
and Market
.
The removal of the uninhabitable One Meridian Plaza off the real estate market and the sudden relocation of the buildings tenants to other offices in Philadelphia removed 1500000 square feet (139,354.6 m²) of real estate off the market. The city's office vacancy rate was 14.3 percent at the end of 1990 and in the two months after the fire the vacancy rate lowered to 10.7 percent. On December 18 Mayor Wilson Goode signed a law requiring every nonresidential building 75 feet (22.9 m) tall or taller have sprinklers installed by 1997. An estimated three hundred buildings in the city were affected by the law.
company prepared for ligation on how to proceed with repairs, who would control those repairs, and at what cost. E/R Partners were proposing deconstructing the building down to the 19th floor and rebuilding from there. Aetna Corporation, the fire insurer, claimed that girders above the 19th level could be repaired and used cutting US$115 million in repair costs from the owner's US$250 million estimate. Aetna also proposed taking over the reconstruction. E/R Partners spent US$50 million securing one Meridian Plaza and spent up to US$500,000 a month on security guards, utilities and inspections by engineers as the building stood empty.
Lawsuits on behalf of sixteen people and businesses claiming losses as a result of the blaze were filed shortly after the fire in 1991. In February 1995 a US$15 million agreement was reached to reimburse workers and businesses affected by the fire. While not admitting any liability, the US$15 million minus legal fees was paid by E/R Partners and was meant for uninsured losses for businesses and workers in One Meridian and the surrounding damaged buildings.
Declared "eyesore of the year" by The Philadelphia Inquirer
in 1994, the burned, empty tower was an embarrassment to the city according to an editorial in The Inquirer. The editorial said the feeling only became worse after One Meridian Plaza could be seen in the background in the film Philadelphia
. The One Meridian Plaza fire left the area around it a commercial void. Nearly every major store in the area closed and property values fell. Neighboring property owners, such as the owner of the damaged buildings behind One Meridian Plaza, were waiting for a decision on the future of the building before going through with their own development plans. In 1996 the city of Philadelphia sued E/R Partners saying One Meridian Plaza was an environmental hazard and should be demolished or repaired. The city and Mayor Ed Rendell
were afraid that when E/R Partners settled with Aetna they would take the money and leave the building unfixed.
the city dropped its lawsuit against the owners. Unable to implode the building because of the building density of the area, E/R Partners began an eighteen month, US$23 million process to dismantle the building. Early in the process, which began in 1998, the owners hoped someone would buy the property as is or with the damaged portion of the structure removed, but that hope was soon abandoned. The process was finished in 1999. At the time of the demolition it was the third tallest habitable building destroyed and is currently the seventh, ranking after the World Trade Center
's twin towers, the Singer Building
, and the original Seven World Trade Center in New York, the Morrison Hotel in Chicago, and 130 Liberty Street
in New York.
feud with the neighboring site, 1441 Chestnut Street. 1441 Chestnut Street was the site of the Morris Building and other smaller buildings that sat behind One Meridian Plaza. The feud between Arden Group's chief executive
Craig Spencer and 1441 Chestnut Street developer Tim Mahoney began in 2003. Spencer and Mahoney settled their dispute in March 2006 and construction on One Meridian's 48-story replacement, the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton began in May. The Residences at The Ritz-Carlton opened in January 2009. A memorial was unveiled on October 21, 2009 at the skyscraper honoring the three firefighters who died in the fire. The memorial features plaques with the firefighter's names.
Storey
A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...
high-rise office building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, United States. The 492 feet (150 m) tower was designed by Vincent Kling & Associates
KlingStubbins
KlingStubbins is an architectural, engineering, interior, and planning firm based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Kling's firm was founded in 1946 by Vincent Kling, FAIA, and had grown to become the largest architecture firm in Philadelphia, and one of the largest in the world. The Stubbins Group...
and completed in 1972. The building was demolished
Demolition
Demolition is the tearing-down of buildings and other structures, the opposite of construction. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apart while carefully preserving valuable elements for re-use....
in 1999 as a result of damage of a fire that began on February 23, 1991. The fire began on the 22nd floor after linseed oil
Linseed oil
Linseed oil, also known as flaxseed oil, is a clear to yellowish oil obtained from the dried ripe seeds of the flax plant . The oil is obtained by cold pressing, sometimes followed by solvent extraction...
soaked rags ignited a blaze that raged out of control for hours. Philadelphia firefighters
Philadelphia Fire Department
The Philadelphia Fire Department provides firefighting and Emergency Medical Services within the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
fought the blaze, but struggled due to a lack of power in the skyscraper and insufficient water pressure from the building's standpipes. Three firefighters died in the twelve alarm fire
Multiple-alarm fire
One-alarm, two-alarm, three-alarm fires, or higher, are categories of fires indicating the level of response by local authorities, with an elevated number of alarms indicating increased commitment of resources. The term multiple-alarm is a quick way of indicating that a fire was severe and...
after becoming disoriented by heavy smoke. Firefighting efforts inside One Meridian Plaza eventually were abandoned due to fears the structure would collapse. The fire was only brought under control once it reached the 30th floor which was one of the few floors that had automatic sprinklers installed. Ten sprinklers held back the fire until it started burning itself out and was finally brought under control almost a full day after it started. The blaze seriously damaged the building destroying eight floors and damaged neighboring buildings.
For eight years after the fire, One Meridian Plaza sat vacant and damaged right in center of Philadelphia's business district. The building was caught in litigation between the owners and the insurance company over how much the insurers would pay the owners and how repairs or demolition would proceed. Businesses near the empty high-rise closed or moved and the city sued the owners to do something with the building. After lawsuits were settled, the building was declared a total loss and began to be dismantled in 1998. At the time of its deconstruction in 1999, One Meridian Plaza was the third tallest destroyed building in the world.
Building
One Meridian Plaza was a 38-storyStorey
A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...
high-rise office building designed by Vincent Kling & Associates
KlingStubbins
KlingStubbins is an architectural, engineering, interior, and planning firm based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Kling's firm was founded in 1946 by Vincent Kling, FAIA, and had grown to become the largest architecture firm in Philadelphia, and one of the largest in the world. The Stubbins Group...
. Construction on the 492 feet (150 m) tower began in 1968, was completed in 1972 and approved for occupancy in 1973. Built at the corner of 15th Street and South Penn Square in Center City, Philadelphia
Center City, Philadelphia
Center City, or Downtown Philadelphia includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. As of 2005, its population of over 88,000 made it the third most populous downtown in the United States, after New York City's and Chicago's...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, the US$40 million high-rise was built adjacent to the Girard Trust Building, now the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia
The Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia
The Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia is a 394 feet 30-storey skyscraper located south of City Hall in the Center City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1930-1931 as the Girard Trust Building. The tower was actually an addition to a domed low-rise building which was constructed in 1908. It...
, and the front faced Philadelphia City Hall
Philadelphia City Hall
Philadelphia City Hall is the house of government for the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At , including the statue, it is the world's second-tallest masonry building, only shorter than Mole Antonelliana in Turin...
across the street. The rectangular One Meridian Plaza was 243 feet (74.1 m) long and 92 feet (28 m) wide and contained 756000 square feet (70,234.7 m²). Of the 38 floors, 36 were occupiable and 2 were mechanical floor
Mechanical floor
A mechanical floor, mechanical penthouse, or mechanical level is a storey of a high-rise building that is dedicated to mechanical and electronics equipment. "Mechanical" is the most commonly used term, but words such as utility, technical, service, and plant are also used...
s. The structure also had 3 underground levels. The building's structure was composed of steel and concrete and the facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
was a granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
curtain wall
Curtain wall
A curtain wall is an outer covering of a building in which the outer walls are non-structural, but merely keep out the weather. As the curtain wall is non-structural it can be made of a lightweight material reducing construction costs. When glass is used as the curtain wall, a great advantage is...
. There were two helipad
Helipad
Helipad is a common abbreviation for helicopter landing pad, a landing area for helicopters. While helicopters are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fabricated helipad provides a clearly marked hard surface away from obstacles where a helicopter can safely...
s on the roof. One Meridian Plaza's eastern stairwell connected the building to the adjacent Girard Trust Building. At one point there were plans to build a structure on the south side of One Meridian Plaza that would share one of the elevator banks in the high-rise, but nothing came of the plans mainly due to neither site having the same owner. On the northwest corner of the property is a bronze sculpture called "Triune." Designed by Robert Engman
Robert Engman
Robert Engman is an American sculptor with a number of works in the Hirshhorn Museum, and elsewhere in the U.S.-Life:...
the abstract sculpture was not damaged in the 1991 fire and is still there.
When One Meridian Plaza was built Philadelphia was enforcing a building code from 1949 that made no distinction between high-rises and other buildings. In 1984 Philadelphia adopted new codes that required automatic sprinkler systems in all new buildings. At the time of construction, sprinklers were only built on the service levels below ground. In 1988 plans were put in place to have automatic sprinklers placed throughout the building by November 1993. By 1991 four floors were completely protected by sprinklers and in part on three other floors. The sprinklers had been installed during floor renovations at the request of tenants and the building's owners had plans to install more as other floors were renovated.
The high-rise was originally known as the Fidelity Mutual Life Building, named for Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Co. who developed the building in a joint venture with Girard Bank
Girard Bank
Girard Bank was a Philadelphia based bank, founded by Stephen Girard in 1811. The bank was acquired by Mellon Bank in 1983 and then two decades later by Citizens Bank....
. The high-rise was the tallest building built in Philadelphia since the early 1930s. Girard Bank sold its share of the property, which was also known as Three Girard Plaza, to Fidelity Mutual Life in 1982. Fidelity Mutual Life, which had moved its offices out of the building to Radnor Township, Pennsylvania
Radnor Township, Pennsylvania
Radnor Township is a township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2000 census, the township population was 30,878. Radnor Township lies along the Main Line, a collection of highly affluent Philadelphia suburbs....
earlier that year, subsequently sold the building to E/R Partners in 1983. A joint venture of the Rubin Organization and Equitable Life Assurance Company of America, E/R Partners bought the property for US$143 million. In 1989 a Dutch pension fund
Pension fund
A pension fund is any plan, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income.Pension funds are important shareholders of listed and private companies. They are especially important to the stock market where large institutional investors dominate. The largest 300 pension funds collectively hold...
, Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds
Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP
Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP , frequently referred to as ABP, is the pension fund for government and education employees in the Netherlands...
, paid US$120 million to enter E/R Partners with a sixty-five percent stake in the building. In 1984 Three Girard Plaza became the Three Mellon Bank Center after Girard Bank was bought by Mellon Bank
Mellon Financial
Mellon Financial Corporation, was one of the world's largest money management firms. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it was in the business of institutional and high-net-worth-individual asset management, including the Dreyfus family of mutual funds; business banking; and shareholder and...
, and in 1990 was renamed again to One Meridian Plaza after Meridian Bank replaced Mellon Bank as the lead tenant. Another major tenant was Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
, who made 81000 square feet (7,525.1 m²) of One Meridian Plaza its corporate headquarters
Headquarters
Headquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility managing all business activities...
in 1989.
Fire
On February 23, 1991, at about 8:23 PM, a fire began on the 22nd floor of the building. It was a Saturday night and there were only three people in the building at the time, an engineer and two security guards. Workers had been refinishing woodwork in a vacant office earlier in the day and workers left a pile of rags soaked in linseed oilLinseed oil
Linseed oil, also known as flaxseed oil, is a clear to yellowish oil obtained from the dried ripe seeds of the flax plant . The oil is obtained by cold pressing, sometimes followed by solvent extraction...
on the floor. The linseed oil oxidized and generated enough heat to ignite the rags which then set fire to other solvent
Solvent
A solvent is a liquid, solid, or gas that dissolves another solid, liquid, or gaseous solute, resulting in a solution that is soluble in a certain volume of solvent at a specified temperature...
s nearby. Smoke detectors did not cover the entire floor and by the time the fire alarm went off the fire was already well established. After the fire alarm sounded in the building the engineer went up to the 22nd floor to investigate. When the elevator reached the 22nd floor the engineer found heavy smoke and heat which prevented him from reaching the elevator controls he needed to return to the lobby
Lobby (room)
A lobby is a room in a building which is used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer or an entrance hall.Many office buildings, hotels and skyscrapers go to great lengths to decorate their lobbies to create the right impression....
. The engineer escaped after radioing to a security guard in the lobby to recall the elevator using fire safety controls there. The second security guard was on the 30th floor when the alarm went off and used the stairwell to get to the ground floor.
The lobby guard returned a call to the alarm monitoring service which had called when the alarm initially went off to confirm that there was a fire, but never called the Philadelphia Fire Department
Philadelphia Fire Department
The Philadelphia Fire Department provides firefighting and Emergency Medical Services within the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
. The first call came from someone on the street who saw smoke coming from the building. During the first 911
9-1-1
9-1-1 is the emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan .It is one of eight N11 codes.The use of this number is for emergency circumstances only, and to use it for any other purpose can be a crime.-History:In the earliest days of telephone technology, prior to the...
call, at about 8:27 PM, the alarm company alerted the fire department to the fire. Engine 43 was the first firefighting unit
Firefighter
Firefighters are rescuers extensively trained primarily to put out hazardous fires that threaten civilian populations and property, to rescue people from car incidents, collapsed and burning buildings and other such situations...
to arrive at the scene and reported seeing heavy smoke and flames in one of the windows. As firefighters started fighting the fire it had grown with flames breaking through windows and lapping up the side of the building.
Problems
Firefighters began experiencing problems before they even reached the fire. By the time firefighters reached the 11th floor the building had lost power after the heat from the blaze damaged electrical cables. The emergency generatorEmergency power system
Emergency power systems are a type of system, which may include lighting, generators, fuel cells and other apparatus, to provide backup power resources in a crisis or when regular systems fail. They find uses in a wide variety of settings from residential homes to hospitals, scientific...
never began producing electricity, and despite efforts to restore power the building was without electricity for the entirety of the event. This forced firefighters to work in darkness and without the aid of elevators. In addition, the transformers that provided power to the neighboring Girard Trust Building were in the basement of One Meridian Plaza. The transformers were eventually shut down due to water accumulation in the basement and firefighters directing water streams from that building had to do so without the aid of elevators.
Firefighters were again hampered when it was discovered the pressure release valves
Relief valve
The relief valve is a type of valve used to control or limit the pressure in a system or vessel which can build up by a process upset, instrument or equipment failure, or fire....
on the standpipes were improperly adjusted when installed in the building. The Philadelphia Fire Department nozzles allowed 100 psi
Pounds per square inch
The pound per square inch or, more accurately, pound-force per square inch is a unit of pressure or of stress based on avoirdupois units...
nozzle pressure while One Meridian Plaza's pressure release valves were giving less than 60 psi discharge pressure, which was not sufficient to fight the fire. It was several hours into the fire before a technician who could adjust the valves arrived at the scene.
The area around the building was cleared of pedestrians and firefighting personnel because of falling glass and debris. The falling debris was dangerous for firefighters because they often had to cross the perimeter around the building to enter and leave the high-rise. Hose lines stretched into the building were damaged by falling debris and one firefighter was struck by debris and seriously injured while tending to the lines.
Lost firefighters
| Victims |
| Captain David P. Holcombe, age 52 |
| Firefighter Phyllis McAllister, age 43 |
| Firefighter James A. Chappell, age 29 |
During the second hour of the fire it spread onto the 23rd and 24th floors. Heavy smoke was building up in the stairwells and a captain and two firefighters from Engine 11 were assigned to go to the top level to ventilate the stairwell. The three firefighters went up a center staircase from the 22nd floor and soon radioed that they were disoriented by heavy smoke on the 30th floor. There were attempts to direct the firefighters through the radio, and soon after the captain requested permission to break a window for ventilation, which was followed by a message that the captain was down. Permission to break the window was given and a search and rescue
Search and rescue
Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...
effort was initiated.
Search teams were sent from the lower floors and searched the 30th floor, but did not find the missing firefighters. The teams then moved onto the upper levels where one team got lost on the 38th floor and ran out of air in their self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). That team was rescued by a search team that had been placed on the roof by a helicopter. Rescue attempts continued until helicopter operations were suspended due to heavy smoke and thermal
Thermal
A thermal column is a column of rising air in the lower altitudes of the Earth's atmosphere. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of the Earth's surface from solar radiation, and are an example of convection. The sun warms the ground, which in turn warms the air directly above it...
drafts caused by the blaze.
Using a searchlight the helicopter crew searched the exterior of the building and at 1:17 AM February 24, the helicopter spotted a broken window on the 28th floor located in an area that could not be seen from the street. At about 2:15 AM a rescue team was sent to the spot and found the three missing firefighters unconscious and out of air in their SCBAs. The firefighters were brought to a medical triage
Triage
Triage or ) is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition. This rations patient treatment efficiently when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately. The term comes from the French verb trier, meaning to separate,...
set up on the 20th floor. There were attempts at resuscitation, but they were unsuccessful and the firefighters were pronounced dead.
Fire Companies on Scene
- 1st/Box Alarm Assignment - Box 495 - 15th & Chestnut Streets
- Squirt 43, Engine 1, Engine 20(Water Supply-LDH) Engine 11(3 Firefighter Line of Duty Deaths from this Company)
- Ladder 9, Snorkel 5
- Medic 7
- Battalion Chief 5, Battalion Chief 4
- 2nd Alarm Assignment:
- Squirt 8, Engine 10, Engine 24, Engine 44, Engine 13(Lobby Control)
- Ladder 23, Ladder 1
- Medic 13
- Battalion Chief 3(Lobby Officer), Battalion Chief 11
- Division(Deputy) Chief 1
- Air Unit 2
- 3rd Alarm Assignment:
- Engine 49(Water Supply-LDH), Engine 40(Water Supply-LDH), Engine 60
- Battalion Chief 1
- Chemical Unit 1, Chemical Unit 2
- 4th Alarm Assignment:
- Engine 5(Water Supply-LDH), Engine 29, Engine 16, Engine 3(Water Supply-LDH), Engine 34(Water Supply-LDH)
- Snorkel 2
- Medic 21B, Medic 25B
- Battalion Chief 8
- Air Unit 1
- 5th Alarm Assignment:
- Engine 33, Engine 27, Engine 53, Engine 25
- Ladder 11
- Car 1(Chief of Department)
- Light Wagon 1
- 6th Alarm Assignment:
- Engine 12, Engine 22, Engine 50(Water Supply-LDH), Engine 59
- Medic 3
- ES-10(Decontamination Trailer)
- 7th Alarm Assignment:
- Squirt 57, Engine 63, Engine 14, Engine 28(Water Supply-LDH)
- 8th Alarm Assignment:
- Engine 61(Water Supply-LDH), Squirt 9, Engine 56, Engine 41
- Ladder 13
- Medic 16, Medic 1
- Battalion Chief 2, Battalion Chief 10
- Car 6
- 9th Alarm Assignment:
- Engine 38, Engine 66, Engine 45, Engine 68
- Ladder 18, Tower Ladder 6
- Battalion Chief 1102(Call-Back for Battalion Chief 2)
- 10th Alarm Assignment:
- Engine 72, Engine 18, Engine 7, Engine 2
- Ladder 25
- 11th Alarm Assignment:
- Engine 71, Engine 35, Engine 103(Reserve), Engine 119(Reserve)
- 12th Alarm Assignment:
- Engine 125(Reserve), Engine 181(Reserve), Engine 36, Engine 52(Water Supply-LDH), Engine 180(ARFF-Reserve-LDH), Engine 19(Water Supply-LDH)
- Ladder 14
- Rescue 1(Reactivated Company for Incident)
- Medic 15, Medic 14
- Battalion Chief 13, Battalion Chief 9
- Division(Deputy) Chief 1A
Fire's end
As the fire was going into its sixth hour it had spread up to the 26th floor. With inadequate water pressure coming from the standpipes, firefighters stretched hoses up the building's stairwells to help fight the fire. While hoses were being taken up to the fire a sprinkler technician arrived to fix the water pressure. This improved the hose streams, but the fire had engulfed several floors and could not be contained with just hoses. By 7:00 AM, almost eleven hours into the fire, firefighters were able to get control of the fire on the 22nd through 24th floors, but the fire was still out of control on the 25th and 26th floors and was spreading upwards. Structural damage observed inside the building by firefighters and consultations with a structural engineer led to fears that the damaged floors might collapse. At 7:00 AM an order to evacuate the building was issued by FireCommissioner Roger Ulshafer and the building was completely evacuated by 7:30 AM. After the evacuation, the only fire suppression efforts left were water streams being directed to the building from the neighboring Girard Trust Building and One Centre Square.
The fire's spread only stopped when it reached the 30th floor which was the first fire affected floor to have automatic sprinklers. Ten sprinklers extinguished the fire on the 30th floor and prevented continued spread. Contained by the automatic sprinklers and running out of fuel, the fire was declared under control at 3:01 PM. The fire lasted over nineteen hours, destroyed eight floors, and killed three firefighters and injured twenty-four. Twelve alarms
Multiple-alarm fire
One-alarm, two-alarm, three-alarm fires, or higher, are categories of fires indicating the level of response by local authorities, with an elevated number of alarms indicating increased commitment of resources. The term multiple-alarm is a quick way of indicating that a fire was severe and...
were called which brought fifty-one engine companies, fifteen ladder companies, eleven specialized units, and over three hundred firefighters. The fire caused an estimated US$100 million in direct property loss.
After the fire
By February 26 city officials had determined One Meridian Plaza was not in danger of collapse. There was structural damage to horizontal steel beams and floor sections on most of the fire damaged floors. Under extreme fire exposure the beams and girders sagged and twisted and cracks appeared in the concrete floors. However, the overall structure was stable and able to support the weight of the building. Thermal expansionThermal expansion
Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change in volume in response to a change in temperature.When a substance is heated, its particles begin moving more and thus usually maintain a greater average separation. Materials which contract with increasing temperature are rare; this effect is...
of the steel frame caused some of the granite panels to be dislodged from the building's facade. The streets and buildings around One Meridian Plaza were closed and cordoned off. The 20-story Morris Building and several three-story shops behind One Meridian Plaza on Chestnut Street
Chestnut Street (Philadelphia)
Chestnut Street is a major historic street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Originally named Wynne Street because Thomas Wynne's home was there. William Penn renamed it Chestnut Street in 1684. It runs east–west from the Delaware River waterfront in downtown Philadelphia through Center City and West...
were damaged by falling debris and sat unused for years until they were demolished in 2000. The neighboring Girard Trust Building, then called Two Mellon Plaza, experienced extensive water damage forcing the closure of the building. A bank in the building reopened a month later but the rest of the tower remained vacant for years. The roads around the building were closed for months after the fire, including a portion of two of Philadelphia's major streets, Broad
Broad Street (Philadelphia)
Broad Street is a major arterial street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is nearly 13 miles long.It is Pennsylvania Route 611 along its entire length with the exception of its northernmost part between Old York Road and Pennsylvania Route 309 and the southernmost part south of Interstate 95...
and Market
Market Street (Philadelphia)
Market Street, originally known as High Street, is a major east–west street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For the majority of its length, it serves as Pennsylvania Route 3....
.
The removal of the uninhabitable One Meridian Plaza off the real estate market and the sudden relocation of the buildings tenants to other offices in Philadelphia removed 1500000 square feet (139,354.6 m²) of real estate off the market. The city's office vacancy rate was 14.3 percent at the end of 1990 and in the two months after the fire the vacancy rate lowered to 10.7 percent. On December 18 Mayor Wilson Goode signed a law requiring every nonresidential building 75 feet (22.9 m) tall or taller have sprinklers installed by 1997. An estimated three hundred buildings in the city were affected by the law.
Vacant eyesore
In the years after the fire One Meridian Plaza stood in the middle of Philadelphia vacant. The fate of the building was up in the air as the building's owners and the insuranceInsurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
company prepared for ligation on how to proceed with repairs, who would control those repairs, and at what cost. E/R Partners were proposing deconstructing the building down to the 19th floor and rebuilding from there. Aetna Corporation, the fire insurer, claimed that girders above the 19th level could be repaired and used cutting US$115 million in repair costs from the owner's US$250 million estimate. Aetna also proposed taking over the reconstruction. E/R Partners spent US$50 million securing one Meridian Plaza and spent up to US$500,000 a month on security guards, utilities and inspections by engineers as the building stood empty.
Lawsuits on behalf of sixteen people and businesses claiming losses as a result of the blaze were filed shortly after the fire in 1991. In February 1995 a US$15 million agreement was reached to reimburse workers and businesses affected by the fire. While not admitting any liability, the US$15 million minus legal fees was paid by E/R Partners and was meant for uninsured losses for businesses and workers in One Meridian and the surrounding damaged buildings.
Declared "eyesore of the year" by The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
in 1994, the burned, empty tower was an embarrassment to the city according to an editorial in The Inquirer. The editorial said the feeling only became worse after One Meridian Plaza could be seen in the background in the film Philadelphia
Philadelphia (film)
Philadelphia is a 1993 American drama film that was one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to acknowledge HIV/AIDS, homosexuality and homophobia. It was written by Ron Nyswaner and directed by Jonathan Demme. The film stars Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington...
. The One Meridian Plaza fire left the area around it a commercial void. Nearly every major store in the area closed and property values fell. Neighboring property owners, such as the owner of the damaged buildings behind One Meridian Plaza, were waiting for a decision on the future of the building before going through with their own development plans. In 1996 the city of Philadelphia sued E/R Partners saying One Meridian Plaza was an environmental hazard and should be demolished or repaired. The city and Mayor Ed Rendell
Ed Rendell
Edward Gene "Ed" Rendell is an American politician who served as the 45th Governor of Pennsylvania. Rendell, a member of the Democratic Party, was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 2002, and his term of office began January 21, 2003...
were afraid that when E/R Partners settled with Aetna they would take the money and leave the building unfixed.
Deconstruction
In March 1997 E/R Partners settled with Aetna receiving around US$300 million. After the legal issues were settled E/R Partners announced the building would be dismantled. With the announcement of the demolitionDemolition
Demolition is the tearing-down of buildings and other structures, the opposite of construction. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apart while carefully preserving valuable elements for re-use....
the city dropped its lawsuit against the owners. Unable to implode the building because of the building density of the area, E/R Partners began an eighteen month, US$23 million process to dismantle the building. Early in the process, which began in 1998, the owners hoped someone would buy the property as is or with the damaged portion of the structure removed, but that hope was soon abandoned. The process was finished in 1999. At the time of the demolition it was the third tallest habitable building destroyed and is currently the seventh, ranking after the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
's twin towers, the Singer Building
Singer Building
The Singer Building or Singer Tower at Liberty Street and Broadway in Manhattan, was a 47-story office building completed in 1908 as the headquarters of the Singer Manufacturing Company. It was demolished in 1968 and is now the site of 1 Liberty Plaza....
, and the original Seven World Trade Center in New York, the Morrison Hotel in Chicago, and 130 Liberty Street
Deutsche Bank Building
The Deutsche Bank Building was a skyscraper at 130 Liberty Street in New York City, United States, adjacent to the World Trade Center . Opened in 1974 as Bankers Trust Plaza, the building was acquired by Deutsche Bank when it acquired Bankers Trust in 1998. It was part of the skyline of Lower...
in New York.
Replacement
The site of One Meridian Plaza was bought by the Arden Group in 2000. The site was converted into a parking lot as construction on a new building was held up in a zoningZoning
Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...
feud with the neighboring site, 1441 Chestnut Street. 1441 Chestnut Street was the site of the Morris Building and other smaller buildings that sat behind One Meridian Plaza. The feud between Arden Group's chief executive
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
Craig Spencer and 1441 Chestnut Street developer Tim Mahoney began in 2003. Spencer and Mahoney settled their dispute in March 2006 and construction on One Meridian's 48-story replacement, the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton began in May. The Residences at The Ritz-Carlton opened in January 2009. A memorial was unveiled on October 21, 2009 at the skyscraper honoring the three firefighters who died in the fire. The memorial features plaques with the firefighter's names.