Architect for collapsed building site says construction hasn’t started yet

Eran
Chen, principal and director of ODA, the architecture firm that
designed the hotel conversion of 71 Reade Street that partially
collapsed this morning, said hotel construction hasn’t started at the
property yet. “The adjacent vacant lot is the one conducting the
underpinning for their future foundation, which probably caused the
collapse,” Chen wrote in an e-mail to Curbed.com. The vacant lot next
door is slated to get a new six-story residential building. According
to the Tribeca Trib, plans were recently submitted to partially
demolish the section of the building that collapsed.