River North condo owner raises balcony safety concerns at 54-story high-rise

So Anita, that includes concrete falling on people who happen to be walking by, whether that's here on Ontario or on State Street, but they're also worried about their entire balcony collapsing. And this is all for anybody to see if they're just standing out here where I'm at right now, or if they go on State Street, you take a look up, you can see many sections of concrete missing where the balconies are located. You also see exposed rebar. And in at least one of the units, It looks like there was a barricade that was blocking the railing area. And we spoke with a man named Elias earlier today on Chicago Live who was on his balcony and he was showing us around and included temporary beams that have been installed on his balcony. And he said this has just been two to three years of what he referred to as deferred maintenance. He said both he and other residents have brought this up in their HOA meetings, but he said they've either been cut off during those meetings or even kicked out of those meetings. And he hopes that with the city now knowing about this and when he tells the story right here on Fox Chicago and when you see what's happening right here, he feels like his condo station will finally fix this. There has been a culture of deferred maintenance and for building or condo owners that do speak up, they are silenced, they are not given attention and have been kicked out of the monthly HOA meetings or Zoom calls even. So I was just mentioning that the city is now involved in this. They sent us a statement saying the Department of Buildings continues to work closely with the owners and management of 10 East Ontario Street to address the property's exterior conditions. And they talked about the conditions and they brought up that a city engineer had noted no unsafe or imminently hazardous condition. Their words, not mine, but they mentioned those temporary supports that are currently in place at certain balcony railing locations. But they also said that the Department of Buildings is requiring ownership to provide a documented repair schedule for the balcony concrete deterioration along with engineer confirmation that the temporary supports remain effective until permanent repairs are complete. And within the last 15 minutes, I just got a statement from the property management company that runs 10 East Ontario just behind me. And to sum it up, you're going to see the full quote on our website, Fox32Chicago.com. But they said they were not aware of any concrete falling on anybody. But they said that the Condo Association is in the process of hiring a firm to do the long-term permanent fix on the balconies right here. They said they want to assess the situation and fix this permanently. We're live in River North tonight, Brett Boganski, Fox Chicago.