Soft-Story Retrofit

Making Soft-Story Buildings Resilient With Retrofits

Los Angeles city leaders passed ordinance 183893 in October, 2015. It requires building owners to perform seismic retrofits on their residential and commercial soft-story properties. Building officials call these multi-story structures soft-story because of the tuck-under parking, garages and big-window storefronts that weaken the street-level floor making it more vulnerable to collapse during an earthquake. Updates required by the ordinance must improve the building’s structural performance and provide a minimum level of safety for inhabitants during a bigger seismic event.

Check out these articles for an in-depth dive into this important topic.