The owners of a historic 66-unit Cambridge condo building, who had to flee it in a hurry last year amid concerns it might collapse, are planning to demolish their home along the Charles River.
The process is anticipated to begin in the months ahead, according to a statement from the company that manages the property. A formal vote to demolish hasn’t yet been taken, and it was not immediately clear when, exactly, the building would be taken down.
“The Board of Trustees is planning for the demolition of the Riverview Building,” said Thayer & Associates, the company that manages the Riverview complex, in a statement. “Conversations continue among the residents about the future sale of the Riverview property.”
The plan would likely also require residents of the adjacent Bradbury building, who have remained in their homes even as their neighbors evacuated, to leave, the statement said.
The 14-unit building shares utilities with the larger Riverview building. Those utilities will need to be disconnected as part of the demolition, Thayer & Associates said.
Many Bradbury residents would like to return, but whether they could do so would depend on the terms of a hoped-for sale to a developer, the details of which still need to be worked out, condo owners familiar with the plans said.
“The tragedy is, you have these 14 perfectly good units that can only be made usable by putting utilities in,” said Linda Salter, an owner who said she has had a unit in Riverview for more than 50 years. “Once you start taking down the building, they’re stranded on an island without electricity, heat, hot water.”
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Many of Riverview’s residents were senior citizens who had planned to age in place in their homes overlooking the Charles. Their lives were upended last year, when building leadership opted to evacuate the striking white-concrete building, which was built in the early 1960s.
The move came after a construction crew in 2023 discovered longstanding structural issues with “substandard concrete” and improperly placed rebar, which appeared to date back to when it was built, the property management company said last year. Further tests found even day-to-day use of the building might overload the concrete, the company has said.
The last residents left the building at the end of December, the Globe has previously reported.
Initially they had hoped they would need to leave their homes only temporarily while new supports were added to the building, but they eventually came to believe that demolition was the only viable option.
Still, many former residents remain thankful the decision to leave came before anyone was harmed and that they can begin this next chapter with their health.
“I think we need to be glass-half-full,” Salter said. “I’m old, but I’m very vital. I played 3 1/2 hours of pickleball yesterday. I plan to live and enjoy my life to the fullest every minute and every day that I have. That I can do and that I plan to do. That‘s all that matters now.”
Cambridge officials have said that the evacuation last year was not ordered by the city but that the city supported the decision to leave.
A city spokesperson said on Thursday that Cambridge had not yet received an application to demolish the Mt. Auburn Street building.
The Riverview ordeal has carried, and will carry, a financial weight. If and when the property does sell, owners expect to recoup a small fraction of what they paid for their units, some of which in recent years sold for millions of dollars.
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In the meantime, they have said they have had to pay taxes and condo fees, as well as for heat and electricity in the dormant building, and other expenses related to the handling of the aftermath of the evacuation.
While they said they will be sad to see it go, many are eager just to move on.
“It‘s both heartbreaking and fabulous that we’re going ahead with this,” said Judy Foreman, who has owned a unit in Riverview for a decade and is a former Boston Globe health columnist. “It‘s a wonderful building and we all loved it. But it‘s time to demolish it.”
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