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Appeal hearing leaves Pajama Factory in limbo over fire code violations

Williamsport's Pajama Factory which is owned by Mark and Suzanne Winkelman.
Chase Bottorf
/
WVIA News
Williamsport's Pajama Factory which is owned by Mark and Suzanne Winkelman.

The future of Williamsport’s historic Pajama Factory remained unclear after a hearing Tuesday on a city order to upgrade its fire-control systems or close.

Tenants of the retail, residential and arts complex on Park Avenue and city residents seeking answers about its future packed Williamsport’s Community Theater League for the hearing on complex co-owner Mark Winkelman’s appeal of the order before the city Building Code Appeal Board.

Many feared inevitable evictions July 22 when the city Bureau of Codes issued a vacate order.

Codes supervisor Gary Knarr issued the order after an inspection found outdated sprinkler and alarm systems, violations of the city fire code.

Winkelman co-owns the complex at 1307 Park Ave. with his wife, Suzanne Winkelman. The 300,000-square-foot property is made up of eight occupied and two unoccupied buildings. It houses about 150 tenants. About 30 feet separates each vacant and occupied building. 

The Pajama Factory’s code violations date back to 2014 and were never corrected, appeals board chairman Tony Visco said.

The Winkelmans pay $1,000 a day to keep the complex open. The money pays for a fire watch — two city firefighters keeping an eye on the building 24 hours a day.

 Winkelman agreed to a fire watch so the building could stay open.

A city inspection report said only one has a working sprinkler system, but Winkelman claimed seven do. The July 3 fire inspection report says Winkelman told fire inspector Stephen Yonkin that there were eight systems.

“Four of them worked. They weren't all up to snuff but the water is going to come out of the sprinkler heads,” Winkelman said during the hearing.

Disagreements between Knarr and Winkelman went back and forth throughout the hearing. Winkelman claimed he asked Knarr for explanations of what needed updating and never got any.

Knarr did not directly address that, but claimed he “wasn’t trying to go overboard” with his requirements. 

 “It's not about what we're going to do, it's not what we're doing moving forward, it's about him (Winkelman) appealing the decision that we submitted an order to vacate based on a report that he submitted to us as required - that showed it was a deficiency,” Knarr said.

Winkelman wants to replace non-working dry systems that rely on non-flammable gases to put out fires with wet systems. But he said he doesn’t believe a three-story building needs sprinklers.

“We're working in that direction. But to think that we have to get all of this up and running in an empty building before we know what we're doing upstairs, really part of the reason we're here is because we can't meet that requirement,” Winkelman said. 

Knarr requested annual documentation that sprinklers work. He said Winkelman was late several months in providing that report.

“The report that we showed had severe deficiencies,” Knarr said.

Yonkin’s inspection determined the property has a “life safety” issue.  

“I didn't do an entire inspection. I more or less visited the site with some other members from the WBF (Williamsport Fire Bureau) specifically to look at this,” Yonkin testified.

Yonkin started looking for hazards throughout the city after he was hired, documenting problems for firefighters to make them aware of potential dangers. 

Winkelman spoke with Yonkin before he inspected the Pajama Factory. 

“Mark had actually mentioned to me that one of the sprinkler systems, or maybe a few of them, had been torn apart at that point and weren’t functional,” Yonkin said. “I assumed they must have been working on it.”

Time passed before his inspection and he noted several sprinkler system valves were closed or turned off. He said the sprinklers don’t work if they’re turned off. 

Yonkin said he was unable to test several devices, which left him concerned.

“I was able to get water to flow enough to move the flow alarm in one of the systems, and it did send off a local alarm, and I was very happy about that. And then it was sort of quickly announced that there was no way to shut it off,” he said.  

Winkelman submitted a request for proposals for new sprinkler and alarm systems. 

“We knew the fire alarm was an issue, and we're trying to figure out exactly what fire alarm and where we get it,” he said. 

Winkelman, a retired architect, didn’t include alarms in his initial request for proposals because of the cost, but included them afterwards. 

“A financial reason to get it out of the RFP is because of doing the alarm work outside of the rapid prevailing wage requirements, it's going to save some money. And the other reason was obviously fire safety,” he said. 

Winkelman said he has a contract with a company called VFP Fire to monitor water flow in sprinkler systems and has worked with them for 15 years.

VFP Fire manager Greg Peters said he inspected the systems and issued reports Aug. 2 and Sept. 24. 

Peters said some buildings have operable wet sprinklers and some have dry systems.

The dry systems did not work but all the wet ones did, Peters said. VFP Fire repaired the dry systems to make them trip when activated.

“All we would do is monitor the flow switches in the building, and then any of the new systems we're actually providing monitoring to the new points where the RFP is calling for the new dry systems,” Peters said. 

Peters said the drawings are ready to be submitted, but he only  received them Monday. 

“We have ordered the parts. My guys were on site and did some reconstitutes and figured out where to run wires, whatever,” Peters said. “We will actually pull wires and pull monitors, and put monitors for every system that's there. Some of them will not be activated because they're not live or not, like some of the ones that are in this RFP, we're going to just pull the wire so that it's there for the future.”

Peters sold Winkelman about 200 upgraded sprinkler heads. He said he didn’t install them.  Those heads haven’t been replaced yet. 

“He (Winkelman) was told to make the replacement, or he was given guidelines or told where they were as best we could, because NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency), point five inspection is for visual inspection only, and we don't look at every sprinkler for him. NFPA doesn't require that,” Peters said.

The Pajama Factory was built between 1883 and 1919 by the Lycoming Rubber Company, a subsidiary of the U.S. Rubber Company, according to the building’s online history.

It was one of the largest United States-based rubber goods manufacturers. Lycoming’s plant made shoes and other rubber products. 

Weldon Pajama Co. leased the building in 1934 and bought it in 1951, making it the largest pajama factory in the world, according to the online history. 

The building was renamed in the 1980s to Raytown, a restaurant and nightclub. 

Winkelman bought the building in 2007. 

Winkelman planned on using grant funding for the work before getting the order to vacate. Winkelman said he was approved for a $2 million redevelopment assistance capital grant five years ago. 

But applicants only get reimbursed the grant money once a project is completed, he said. Winkelman said he still doesn’t have the money. 

“Once we got into it, they let us know that they don't ever approve a reimbursement until we've done this project,” Winkelman said. “I had to send them a note. ‘If I had $2 million in my pocket, I wouldn't be asking you for grant money.’” 

The project was broken down into four parts. The sprinkler upgrades were the final step of part one, Winkelman said. 

“We only use the money for those deferred maintenance and lead safety issues. Those things are all expensive,” he said. 

The Pajama Factory received another $700,000 Community Revitalization Fund Program grant for housing in one building. Winkelman said they’re ready to begin using it.

“I require the architects to get started, so then we can start to lay out the plans and start to create proper budgets, other than just arm waving budgets,” he said.  

Winkelman said local alarms were installed based on 2006 fire code. He said he got a “junky building” he’s trying to fix and signed an alarm contract last year. 

“These buildings I feel are very safe,” Winkelman said. “We started talking about the alarm system with codes and we've been working on it for a while.”

Winkelman said all the rooms built at the factory are big and open with fire-rated walls. 

“Should there be a fire, it'll, at least for a bit, be contained inside each of those small rooms instead of flash out everywhere,” he said. 

The sections with businesses and art studios are covered with a wet sprinkler system and alarms. Some live-in tenant sections are not, Winkelman said. 

Building one is vacant and building three is partially vacant, he said. Buildings one, three, four and five are all three stories. Four and five have ground floor occupancy, Winkelman said. White Knight Game Room and the furniture restoration shop are on the ground floor. 

The community woodshop is a third of the floor building through but they're just on the ground floor. 

“They don't have two access rights, straight to the street, so I don't think we have a life safety issue with these occupants. Nobody sleeps there. There something breaks out in the corner, they'll run out the door and upstairs is totally baking them up,” Winkelman said. 

Robert Diehl, Winkelman’s lawyer, offered several conditions to satisfy the Bureau of Codes, including daily documented employee walkthroughs; fire hazard reports to management; consumer-grade fire detectors in buildings one, three, four and five; and additional fire extinguishers in buildings one, three, four, five and six. 

“This is all really getting towards the fact that the fire watch is just not sustainable. And we would offer these conditions in lieu of the fire watch monthly updates to the city regarding RFP status and updates about the pending construction work that is in the contract identified for the alarm system,” Diehl said. 

The appeals board will take several days to decide.

Visco adjourned the hearing for further discussion. The building’s historical state isn’t black and white like the board’s previous decisions," he said. 

“This is so rough and complex that I think it deserves to have a fair agreement,” Visco said.

Chase Bottorf is a graduate of Lock Haven University and holds a bachelor's degree in English with a concentration in writing. Having previously been a reporter for the Lock Haven news publication, The Express, he is aware of the unique issues in the Lycoming County region, and has ties to the local communities.

The Lycoming County reporter position is funded by the Williamsport Lycoming Competitive Grant Program at the First Community Foundation Partnership of Pennsylvania.

You can email Chase at chasebottorf@wvia.org