L.B. to Check Cost of Putting Sprinklers in Older High-Rises

When the City Council this week discussed requiring that all high-rise buildings be equipped with sprinkler systems, the talk was peppered with the realism that it would cost money--and lots of it.

“The problem is that, politically, it’s a big deal because it’s expensive,” Fire Marshall Art Santavicca said after the council meeting Tuesday.

Councilman Evan Anderson Braude asked City Manager James Hankla to review the costs of requiring that sprinkler systems be installed in all older buildings, including City Hall, and then come up with possible methods of financing.

No Sprinkler System

Braude and his colleagues want to ensure that local firefighters will not encounter a fire similar to the one that hit the First Interstate Bank building in downtown Los Angeles last week. That fire, which killed one person, injured about 40 and gutted five floors, could have been put out without major damage or injuries had the building been protected by a sprinkler system. Ironically, a crew was installing a $3.5-million sprinkler system when the fire broke out.

Council members noted that such systems are an expensive addition, and they asked Hankla to review whether the city can help private businesses and owners of apartment buildings pay for the installation.

Councilwoman Jan Hall asked Hankla to review whether money from the city’s Redevelopment Agency could be used to pay for systems in high-rises within redevelopment areas. “We have to be a financial partner,” Hall said.

Since 1974, all new buildings more than 55 feet high--about five stories--have been required to have sprinklers, Fire Chief James B. Souders said. That is a more stringent requirement than the state law, which requires sprinkler systems in buildings taller than 75 feet, Hankla said.

64 High-Rise Buildings

Of 64 high-rise buildings in Long Beach, 13 have sprinkler systems and 25 have partial systems, Souders said. Only one of the buildings, the Breakers Hotel in downtown, was built before 1974 and had a system installed voluntarily, Santavicca said.

The Fire Department’s official view of sprinkler systems is unequivocal: install them.

“The Fire Department says ‘sprinkle’ everything. We know that they work and they’re over 97% effective,” Santavicca said. “It saves lives and it saves work for us, frankly.”

But Santavicca is far from convinced that the council will agree to require all older high-rises to install the systems. Council members, he said, “recognize that this is a political problem.” The cost of the system is about $5,000 per unit in a residential building, he said. “In two or three weeks, this may all be forgotten.”

If a big fire did break out in a Long Beach skyscraper, the city has about 110 firefighters on duty at any time to tackle it, Souders said. That’s about one-third the number of firefighters who fought the First Interstate Bank fire. In the case of such a disaster, Long Beach firefighters would immediately seek help from neighboring fire departments, officials said.

In 1986, there were 40 fires in high-rise buildings across the city but most were put out immediately, Souders said.

In recent years, there have been only three significant fires in downtown residential high-rises. Two were in the Pacific Holiday Towers on Ocean Boulevard and the third was in the nearby Villa Riviera Apartments, Santavicca said. All three fires were contained in small areas and put out without major damage, he said.

All high-rise buildings across the state are required to have alarms that residents can pull in the event of fire, Santavicca said. And all residential high-rises are required to have battery-operated smoke detectors, he said.

The Los Angeles City Council this week ordered the drafting of an ordinance requiring all city-owned and privately owned high-rises taller than 75 feet to be retrofitted with sprinkler systems. And there is pending legislation in Sacramento that would require all residential buildings taller than 75 feet to have sprinklers, Souders said.

Mayor Ernie Kell said after the meeting that he would like to see the council mandate that all high-rise office buildings be retrofitted with sprinklers.

Vice Mayor Warren Harwood, on the other hand, said that his primary concern would be with residential structures since those are “the buildings that people sleep in.”

Referring to tall apartment and condominium structures, Santavicca said: “I wouldn’t live in that building if it wasn’t sprinkled.”