Beloved Carolina Beach condos return to action after battle with 'salt, rain and wind'

One longtime Carolina Beach condo complex is wrapping up repairs after a routine inspection last summer revealed "dangerous" corrosion in the building's stairwells.

While the Pelican Watch condo complex was deemed structurally sound last August, engineers also found substantial corrosion where the stairs attached to the main structure, said Ron Hagner, president of the Pelican Watch homeowners' association.

To the naked eye, the old steps didn't look corroded even though they had been patched and painted countless times since 1984 when the complex was built. After some digging, engineers found what they deemed "dangerous" corrosion.

“Back then in August was a tough time for us all,” Hagner said. “We had to take a lot of decisive and fast action.”

The stairway corrosion at Pelican Watch was found just weeks after a condo collapse killed 98 people just outside of Miami. Although the timing was coincidental, Hagner said, the Florida condo collapse added urgency to the way owners are approaching repairs.

At Pelican Watch, condo owners were first forced to cancel all rental reservations until alternative stairs were installed.

All 12 permanent residents were allowed to stay in their units throughout the repairs. When temporary exterior stairs were bought in late October the condos were "open for business," Hagner said.

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But repairing the building's permanent stairs took much longer.

“It was a complex process,” Hagner said. “Two 11-story stairwells had to be completely removed, the walls around them had to be removed, and the new galvanized stairs, fabricated and installed.”

Owners chipped in to pay for the stairwell repairs, which cost the complex approximately $1.5 million. Another $400,000 in costs have also turned up during the repairs.

Each owner was charged a capital improvement assessment and an increased monthly assessment that allowed the complex to pay for initial work on the stairways and get a bank loan to cover the rest, according to Hagner.

“You don’t do anything cheap in these buildings," Hagner said, "but when the value is going up like it is it’s easier to justify.”

Hagner owns two units in the 74-unit complex and said his properties have doubled in value since he bought them four years ago.

The building's proximity to the ocean means it's exposed to salt, rain and wind that contributes to corrosion, Carolina Beach Planning Director Jeremy Hardison told the StarNews in August. Hardison said he wasn't aware of any past inspection issues within the 11-story complex.

While workers replaced the stairways, they ended up finding other parts of the building that needed repair, including corrosion in the building's sprinkler system and some electrical issues. The building's five-member HOA board decided to fix everything all at once.

“The last thing we want is to have all these stairs put in, and then everything cosmetically put back together and then have a problem with the fire system that we had to rip into those damn walls again,” Hagner said.

Last year's Miami condo collapse has changed how owners are approaching building repairs moving forward, according to Hagner.

“The HOA mentality … is it's fine now let the future owners worry about it,” he said. “There's a lot of that changing now, and it certainly has changed at Pelican Watch.”

The complex took down its temporary staircases two weeks ago and workers are working to wrap up "cosmetic" details like painting in the stairwells. Hagner expects the work to finish by the end of April, just in time for tourist season.

Reporter Emma Dill can be reached at 910-343-2096 or edill@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Carolina Beach condos wrap up $1.9 million in repairs