Residents of a burned out, unlivable condominium building held a meeting last Wednesday hoping to hear from the homeowners association or construction company whether their units will be rebuilt soon. To their chagrin, they still don’t know.
In May 2022, fire gutted the Bristol Court condo building at 200 Thames Parkway in the north suburb. The 36-unit was left uninhabitable and owners displaced.
On Nov. 18, several of the condo residents appealed to the City Council for help in the situation. Then, on Nov. 20, they held a community meeting that included representatives from BlueSky Restoration – the emergency response construction company working on rebuilding the units – and Bristol Court Condominium Association.
At issue, the residents have been told, is the repair bill.
While BlueSky started some work early this year, the company is nowhere near done.
Residents say they have heard from BlueSky that the condo’s insurance company has not agreed to pay the full cost of the project. The insurance company’s estimated costs are in 2022 dollars and don’t take into consideration price hikes, so work is at a standstill until both sides can agree to a price.
The estimated cost of repairs was not immediately clear.
No representative from the insurance company, New York City-based Greater New York Mutual Insurance Company, attended the Nov. 20 meeting.
“We’ve been on no one’s radar for that first 19 months,” said Katie Dooley-Joyce, a resident of one of the condos.
Briefly last year, when BlueSky got involved, residents thought maybe by Christmas 2024 they would get their homes back. In January of this year, the city OK’d reconstruction after the building shell passed inspection. But in April, Maureen Moore, the former president of the homeowner’s association, said the insurance company didn’t agree to the estimated cost from BlueSky.
Now it’s nearing a third Christmas and dozens of residents are still homeless.
“We’re waiting for good news. We’re expecting a rebuttal from the insurance company after Thanksgiving,” Moore said. “What we need to get is a final statement of loss, so we will get an understanding of what they will cover and what they will not cover.”
Moore said there’s about a $2 million gap between what the construction company says it will cost and what the insurance company will pay.
“We’re caught in between a rock and a hard place,” Dooley-Joyce said.
Representatives from BlueSky declined to comment to Pioneer Press.
In the meantime, residents continue to pay fees and costs associated with their condo, including association fees, though residents haven’t been able to live there since the fire. Some live with friends or family, and some have rented other spaces.
“I only had insurance for six months to pay for a place to live, so that’s gone,” said Dooley-Joyce. “Some people had a year.”
On Nov. 18, Dooley-Joyce went before the City Council to ask for the city’s help. She said since that Monday meeting, she met with Drew Awsumb, the community development director, and he told residents he’d see what the city could do to help.
No city representative attended the resident meeting Nov. 20, but Dooley-Joyce said she expects to hear back from Awsumb’s office after the Thanksgiving holiday. She said she felt buoyed by her meeting with Awsumb.
“[City leaders] said they stand behind helping the citizens who have been displaced the last two years and five months,” said Dooley-Joyce.
But another man, who asked to remain anonymous, wasn’t so sure.
“We’re going to be losers,” he said.
Jesse Wright is a freelancer.
