It sounds like this is a partially converted office block, which may explain the fire safety issues. Worrying that people could still live there with known issues.
I’m not sure what gives you that impression. The article just says “Mixed use residential and commercial” which applies to hundreds of thousands of purpose built apartment buildings.
The article specifies that they had fire safety compliance citations last year for the building cladding not being up to code.
True. I’d taken commercial as meaning offices, but I guess it could be retail.
Converting office space is a trend in London right now though.
Could also be restaurants. I lived in a mixed use building above a few restaurants once. I wouldn’t recommend it. The restaurants would semi-regularly set off the fire alarm for the entire building, including in the middle of the night.
Nothing quite like trying to rush to wrangle a dog and a rabbit and put on some clothes at 3:00 in the morning. Fortunately, the rabbit was deaf, so he was the easiest part of the process.
Terrifying. I hope no one was badly injured.
Fire was always my biggest concern when living in multi-family buildings. Can’t protect yourself from whatever your neighbors might get up to.
I once lived in a townhouse next to a family where they wouldn’t turn off the smoke alarm when cooking and would just let it keep going and going. And nobody would answer the door when this would happen, furthering my concerns. Had to call the fire department on them more than once. Thankfully, they moved out before too long.
