NEW HANOVER COUNTY — After a façade and roof collapse in the last year-and-half in downtown Wilmington brought about public safety concerns, county staff, at the behest of commissioners, researched a program to require periodic inspections of buildings 100 years or older. However, on Thursday area leaders decided against moving forward with it.
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No formal vote was taken, as the goal was to assess what the program could look like before deciding whether it should be added to the county’s purview. Staff has been working on it since last fall, with inspections applying to century-old commercial properties only.
Assistant County Manager Lisa Wurtzbacher said downtown has roughly 438 properties that would be considered, including 401 located within city limits, 14 in beach towns, and 23 in the unincorporated areas of the county. The county has an interlocal agreement with municipalities to inspect buildings, but they only take place with new construction, renovations and updates on properties, though complaints can also trigger a closer look.
In the last seven months, the county staff met with multiple stakeholders for feedback during its research and development process, including City of Wilmington, property and business owners, Wilmington Downtown Inc., the Business Alliance for a Sound Economy, Downtown Business Alliance, Wilmington Chamber and Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders. Most questions, Wurtzbacher said, centered on the scope of the inspections, impact on business owners and staffing needs.
Many didn’t think the county should hire someone internally but use a contractor instead, she relayed. Staff also looked at contracting third-party vendors instead of hiring its own inspector, but found it would cost millions. However, staff did concede an outside contractor may be solicited if complicated issues needed to be addressed.
The estimated price of the periodic inspections program — $839,000 over five years — would be covered by fees, making it cost-neutral to the county. Staff recommended one professional engineer be hired to do the inspections, which would run roughly $158,000; this would be someone trained and certified to assess structural integrity of buildings.
The inspections, to happen once every five years, would not include mechanical, electrical or plumbing oversight. As a building hits the 100 mark, it too would add into the fold.
Wurtzbacher assessed it would cost property owners around $1,900 per inspection; any problems that arose would need to be rectified by the property owner as well.
Staff also talked with officials from Miami-Dade and New York City about its programs, though those states have varied legislative authority than North Carolina. So what works there may not be viable here; however, New Hanover County has statutory authority to create a periodic inspection program. Other cities did note issues with uncollectible monies and having to cover financial obligations for legal actions to compel payment.
“Miami-Dade and New York City operate by putting the onus on property owners to get inspections done as well,” Wurtzbacher said. “We can’t do that here in North Carolina, but we would certainly accept a report from a certified professional that covered the scope of what we wanted to do because a property owner may have had an inspection for another reason, and we wouldn’t want to require them to have another one done.”
As done in other cities, Wurtzbacher suggested an appeal board be created for anyone who wanted to plead their case against an inspection outcome. Members of the board would be appointed by commissioners.
Vice Chair LeAnn Pierce wanted to know what the county’s hired engineer would be doing in the downtime when inspections weren’t needed. County Manager Chris Coudriet explained the inspections would be handled on a rotating and rolling basis. She also took issue with the price tag business owners would be burdened with every five years.
“I don’t like it,” Pierce said, calling it government overreach.
Commissioner Dane Scalise wasn’t a fan either, after having spoken with downtown business owners. He took issue not only with the $1,900, but potential technical violation fees and then remediation possibly costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Wurtzbacher said the staff discussed assessing fees per square footage but landed on per-property instead.
“I think it is too much bureaucracy,” Scalise said. “If it were to be driven by a local government, it should be driven by the municipal government where these buildings are found. So if the City of Wilmington decides that it wants to do this, then that would be their prerogative. They could pay for it. But I don’t think the New Hanover County government should be doing this.”
As to whether the city is considering taking up a similar program, spokesperson Lauren Edwards pointed to current “enforcement actions for unsafe, deteriorated, and dilapidated buildings through the City’s Nonresidential Structures Ordinance and the County’s Building Safety Department and noted cases are also opened whether via complaints observations by code enforcement staff.
“Any future programmatic discussions would be pending by the incoming city manager,” Edwards added, speaking of Becky Hawke who will replace Tony Caudle upon his June 30 retirement.
Commissioner Rob Zapple asked Wurtzbacher if staff had distinguished priority properties — for instance, those with brick or stucco façades or multiple-story buildings. Both the collapses on Grace and Princess streets last year had such characteristics.
“We did talk about priority; if we thought there was a problematic building, we could prioritize it,” she said.
Zapple pushed on the public safety issue, noting the county is already doing inspections and worried if something else collapsed that injured someone, the county could be held accountable. He favored being proactive to avoid a more serious issue down the road.
“It will be finger-pointing to the inspecting organization, which will be the county,” Zapple said. “If somebody were to be hurt or killed from a brick that falls from any one of the taller buildings, as you know has already happened — and thank God has not hit anybody — we will be the ones that will be on the front page, as the responsible party.”
Pierce questioned how it made the county responsible.
“Well, I think that’s where it would end up in court,” Zapple answered.
“We’ll be responsible if we have that position — as they’ll say, ‘You didn’t inspect it,’” she countered.
Scalise sided with Pierce on culpability.
“As of right now, the property owner is responsible for the liability associated with negligent maintenance of their property,” he pressed. “Us taking this on only would expand our liability.”
Pierce asked if current inspectors, such as those in the health department, could not make note if something looked off with a building. Coudriet said they weren’t necessarily qualified to render an opinion when it comes to structural integrity of a building, which is why the county would hire a specialized engineer in this area.
“If your pool is cracked,” Pierce explained, “the health department is on it and then they’ll close you down just like that. That’s structural.”
Pierce added inspection avenues are already in place at the county to mitigate some concerns. Inspections happen only when new businesses come online, a business switches hands, improvements to a property are needed or via complaints.
“It may catch some of it, but it’s just a percentage of it,” Zapple said. “I’m just trying to get a level set, or a baseline, where the issues are with these older buildings. We could argue that 100 years is not old enough — start looking at 150 years old, possibly that would bring the numbers down.”
He pressed upon last year’s video footage of the façade collapse, due to decay, on Grace Street. Bricks came down in front of Tacobaby, Rumcow, and Kat 5 Kava and landed in the properties, on the sidewalk and vehicles, shattering windows and doors. It left one person with minor injuries. The businesses had to shutter and undergo construction, reopening a month later.
“It still gives me shivers,” Zapple said. “And the employee that was standing out there, checking people into a wedding there, had just left — literally, less than a minute before to go inside. And with no notice — it wasn’t like, you know, a big cracking sound and a couple of pieces of water, it just ballooned.”
Zapple added even if the county sent a letter or notice to property owners to get an inspection from a suggested third-party company, it would cost more than the $1,900 the county would charge. Wurtzbacher clarified the county’s legal team said inspections couldn’t be required without the county offering those services.
“Part of problem is you have people who don’t live here — landlords that are hundreds, if not thousands of miles away and so they’re not as attentive as any of us sitting at the table would be to these kinds of issues,” Zapple said. “So how do we get their attention to say, ‘You need to take a look at some of the basic maintenance on your building.’ That’s really what we’re trying to see here.”
This was the issue at 205 Princess Street when the roof collapsed on Brand Engine. The design agency business owner Justin Mitchener had been complaining for years about problems to the building’s property management group. They handled complaints for the property owner, but little to nothing was corrected. Mitchener said he emailed Wilmington’s Best Rentals roughly eight times a year “at least,” he said, expressing concerns about the building’s structural integrity and leaks.
Commissioner Stephanie Walker agreed with Zapple that safety is a concern but also worried about liability issues Scalise and Pierce had mentioned. However, Walker liked the idea of creating awareness.
“I don’t think that’s a bad idea,” she said, leaning into notifying property owners. “Let them know the liability is on them. I think awareness might be a good idea, but I don’t think we can require them to do anything.”
Coudriet said the board didn’t need to take a vote, as staff was wanting to clear this from the agenda, since commissioners had asked them to look into its possibility last year.
“If there is a lack of consensus, then that’s clear enough to us to remove the revenue and expense from the FY 26 budget, and we’ll consider it settled,” Coudriet said, referring to its $158,125 annual cost.
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