MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - The Christmas Day fire at a Minneapolis low-income housing facility has renewed calls to retrofit older buildings with sprinklers, but the high cost complicates the issue.
The Drake Hotel fire is the second major blaze in a Minneapolis housing complex in five weeks. The day before Thanksgiving, a fire killed five people in a public housing high-rise in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.
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Minneapolis fires bring renewed calls for sprinklers in low-income housing
The Christmas Day fire at a Minneapolis low-income housing facility has renewed calls to retrofit older buildings with sprinklers, but the high cost complicates the issue.
Neither of the buildings were fully covered by sprinklers, which were not required when the buildings were constructed. Lawmakers say it could cost tens of millions of dollars to fully retrofit low-income housing complexes in Minneapolis alone.
"It should not take a tragedy like these ones we have seen for us to wake up," said state Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL-Minneapolis, who represents the Cedar-Riverside area and is calling for sprinkler retrofitting. "This is something that was needed a long time ago."
Hennepin County used the Drake as a backup shelter for homeless families. In 2018, the county paid the building's owners $843,000 to rent space at the downtown Minneapolis facility.
Could the county require sprinklers as a condition of future shelter contracts?
"We’ll begin to look at what makes sense in terms of features like (sprinklers)," Hennepin County Board Chairwoman Marion Greene told reporters when asked about the issue Thursday. "As we’ve alluded to, two recent tragedies, so it’s very much on our minds."
A fire broke out at the Francis Drake Hotel apartment building in downtown Minneapolis Wednesday morning. (FOX 9)
But when it comes to expensive retrofitting, the county doesn't have much influence when a building is privately owned, county officials said Friday. Hennepin County also doesn't have many options to shelter families, the officials said.
The Drake was only partially covered by sprinklers, said Jen Longaecker, a spokeswoman for the state fire marshal. The state does not know how many sprinklers the building had, or where they were located, she said.
Minnesota does not require building owners to retrofit facilities with sprinklers if they were built before fire suppression was required. The Cedar High tower is 50 years old; the Drake was built in 1927.
Minnesota Democrats on the state and federal level are calling for governments to pay for sprinkler retrofitting.
"First we’re going to need funding. We’re going to need resources," said state Sen. Kari Dziedzic, DFL-Minneapolis. "It’s a critical infrastructure. It’s critical life safety. This is grandma living in that building. So do you want your grandma living in a building that is not safe?"
It could cost $69 million to retrofit more than three dozen Minneapolis public housing facilities that don't have sprinklers, Dziedzic said.
U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith have introduced legislation that would create a grant program for public housing authorities that retrofit their buildings.