The Regulatory Gap

58 Inspections Scheduled. More Than Half Canceled or Waived.

NBC10 Investigators pulled the commercial building permit records for the CHOP garage project on April 14. Between October 23, 2025 and March 16, 2026, the period when the structure was going up, 58 inspections were scheduled.

More than half were canceled or waived.

The records break down like this:

Foundation wall inspections. These check whether walls are installed correctly and match the approved plans. 19 were planned. 5 passed. 1 was canceled. 13 were waived.

Foundation footing inspections. These check the reinforcement and footing size, which are load-bearing structural elements. 37 were planned. 17 passed. 7 were canceled. 13 were waived.

The initial site inspection passed. The permit issuance notification was waived.

The records do not specify whether Philadelphia's Department of Licenses and Inspections performed these or whether the private special inspector brought on for the precast work was responsible. NBC10 asked the city who conducted the inspections and why so many were waived. As of the broadcast, the city had not responded. The special inspector also declined to comment.

Dr. Abi Aghayere, a structural engineering professor at Drexel University, told NBC10 that this is not normal. "I don't know all of the ins and outs of why they would have waived those inspections, but it's not common." He added: "Construction is a really risky business. One mistake can lead to the loss of lives. So I will not waive any inspections, especially when a building is being built."

This is what this site has been saying since the first page went up. The inspection system on this project was broken before the collapse. Now there is a number on it. 58 scheduled. More than half never happened. And the people who can answer why are not answering.

Why This Matters

Foundation inspections are not optional paperwork. They verify that the structural base of a seven-story building is what the engineers said it would be. When 13 of 19 foundation wall inspections get waived, nobody on the outside of that job knows whether those walls were built to the approved plans. When 13 of 37 foundation footing inspections get waived, nobody knows whether the steel reinforcement and footing sizes are what they were supposed to be.

This is not the precast concrete that failed on April 8. This is the base of the building. The foundation the rest of the structure sat on.

The precast segment that triggered the collapse is a separate question. OSHA will look at that. But the NBC10 records raise a different question: what else on this project was not checked?

Mayor Parker's executive order directs the city's investigation to review "permitting, inspection, construction, alteration and maintenance records associated with the property." Those records are the 58 inspections. The ones that passed, the ones that were canceled, and especially the ones that were waived. That is now the story.

The Gap

Here is the fact that should stop you cold:

The precast concrete segments that failed (the components whose collapse killed three workers) were not inspected by the City of Philadelphia.

The city's Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) issued all eight permits required for the project. But the precast concrete components fell outside L&I's jurisdiction entirely.

The city issued the permits, signed off on the plans, and allowed construction to proceed, but the actual structural elements that determined whether workers lived or died were someone else's problem.

How It Works

Precast concrete segments are manufactured off-site at specialized facilities, then transported and installed by the manufacturer or a subcontractor. Because they are not poured on-site, they do not fall under standard L&I inspection protocols.

Instead, they fall under a system called "special inspections": periodic checks conducted by private, third-party inspectors. The city outsources these inspections because the work is considered "highly specialized" and "beyond the scope of the agency's regular work."

For the CHOP garage, the special inspections were assigned to Valerie Moody of GAI Construction Monitoring Services, a private firm based in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, that does business as CMT Services Group.

The city's responsibility in this arrangement, according to L&I, is limited to "managing the program, ensuring that there is a special inspector for the project, and that the building plan is being followed."

What This Means in Practice

The permit system creates a structural illusion. From the outside, it looks like the city is overseeing construction, permits were issued, inspections were current, everything appeared to be in order. Mayor Parker confirmed after the collapse that "all of the project's required permits were properly issued and inspections were up to date."

But the actual inspection of the components that mattered most (the precast segments being installed at the moment of collapse) was delegated to a private party.

This is not a case of inspections being skipped. It is a case of a system designed so that the city's name is on the permits but the city's eyes are not on the concrete.

The Key Players

Of the four entities most directly involved in the structural work that failed, three have not responded to media inquiries and one declined to comment.

The Questions OSHA Must Answer

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is leading the investigation. Based on public reporting, the core questions include:

• Temporary supports: Were adequate temporary shoring and bracing in place during precast installation? (This was the primary cause of the 2003 Tropicana collapse.)
• Engineering specifications: Did the subcontractor follow the engineer's design for connections and placement?
• Inspection intervals: Were periodic inspections by GAI Construction Monitoring conducted at required frequencies?
• Manufacturing integrity: Were there defects in the precast segments from the casting or curing process?
• Connection quality: Were embedded steel connections and welds properly executed?
• Contractor oversight: Did the general contractor enforce proper safety procedures during installation?

The investigation is expected to take at least six months due to existing OSHA backlogs. Any citations, violations, or written reports will be made public.

The Broader Problem

This regulatory gap is not unique to Philadelphia. Across the country, specialized construction techniques are often inspected by private third parties rather than government agencies. The theory is that private specialists have more expertise than government inspectors.

The question this collapse forces is whether that theory holds when three workers are dead, two companies won't return phone calls, and the city is left explaining that its permits were in order for a building that no longer exists.

The 2003 Tropicana Casino collapse in Atlantic City killed four workers and injured twenty under nearly identical circumstances: precast concrete, progressive collapse, inadequate temporary supports. That investigation led to a $101 million settlement and OSHA findings that the subcontractor had a history of safety violations.

Twenty-three years later, the same construction method failed in the same way. The regulatory framework designed to prevent it did not.

The Money

CHOP is a tax-exempt nonprofit institution. It has been since 1932. It paid $24.75 million for the 3.4-acre lot and $32.27 million in construction costs. Roughly $57 million total for an employee parking garage in a neighborhood where residents were asking for a clinic or a community center. There is no formal Community Benefits Agreement between CHOP and Grays Ferry. The community benefit obligations that justify CHOP's tax-exempt status did not require one.

The Investigation

On the morning of April 13, standing at the site where three ironworkers died five days earlier, Mayor Parker signed an executive order.

The order directs City Solicitor Garcia and the Law Department to conduct what Parker called "a full and comprehensive and independent investigation into this parking garage collapse." The language of the order states that "a thorough and independent and transparent investigation into the circumstances that led to this tragedy is warranted, so that all relevant facts established and accountability may follow where appropriate."

The order also states that "the City of Philadelphia has a compelling interest in ensuring that all buildings and structures within its jurisdiction are constructed, maintained, and inspected in compliance with applicable laws and regulations to protect the safety and welfare of the public."

The city must hire an independent consultant and additional experts. A public report is due within 180 days. After the report is delivered, the city will establish a "Special Independent Committee on the Grays Ferry Parking Garage Collapse" to review the findings. Parker described it as "an intergovernmental committee" with "federal, state, and local government partners. Everyone will have a seat at the table."

When asked how this investigation differs from OSHA's, Parker said: "Our investigation will be a forensic investigation, whereupon our city solicitor gathers all of the facts associated with this tragedy and makes sure that she reports those findings."

This matters because of what the investigation will have to confront.

Philadelphia's Department of Licenses and Inspections does not directly inspect precast concrete installation. It outsources that work to private third-party "special inspectors." For this project, the special inspector was Valerie Moody of GAI Construction Monitoring Services, a firm based in Conshohocken, PA that does business as CMT Services Group. L&I has said that all permits were approved and all inspections were up to date at the time of the collapse.

The question the investigation needs to answer: who hired GAI? The developer? The general contractor? And how independent is an inspector who is paid by the people whose work they are inspecting?

The precast subcontractor, Precast Services Inc. out of Twinsburg, Ohio, told reporters after the collapse that they have "no prior failures on record." OSHA has at least one violation record for a company named Structural Precast Services, Inc. on their database, though the details are not fully accessible. The general contractor, HSC Builders out of Exton, PA, has no major prior lawsuits or violations according to NBC10's investigation.

The regulatory system that allowed this project to proceed with private inspections instead of direct city oversight is exactly what this committee will need to examine. Whether the investigation leads to real structural reform or becomes another report that sits on a shelf depends on what happens after the 180 days are up.

What CHOP Has Said

In the days after the collapse, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia released a single official statement:

"Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is aware of a serious construction incident at our parking garage construction site on 3000 Grays Ferry Avenue in Philadelphia. We are prioritizing the safety of the construction workers at this time and working closely with the City of Philadelphia and our construction partners. We will share additional information as it becomes available."

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, official statement

Mayor Parker has said she has been in direct contact with CHOP CEO Madeline Bell and that CHOP is fully cooperating with the investigation.

Beyond that, CHOP has made no public statement about:

• Whether they will rebuild the garage.
• Whether they will abandon the project, as the Inquirer editorial board has now urged.
• Whether they take any responsibility for the conditions that led to the collapse.
• What, if any, financial support is being offered to the families of Stepan Shevchuk, Matthew Kane, and Mark Scott Jr.

An institution with CHOP's resources, media relations staff, and public relations budget has been notably quiet. Three workers died on their project, in a neighborhood that fought them every step of the way. The community is still waiting for them to say something.

What Happens Next

The Philadelphia DA's Office is preserving evidence at the site. Mayor Parker has promised to "get to the damn bottom of what happened."

At a City Council hearing, Council President Kenyatta Johnson, whose district includes Grays Ferry, called for a moment of silence and said: "We are reminded of the dangers that many of our hardworking men and women of the building trades face every day to support their families and build our city."

Whether this collapse leads to systemic reform, or becomes another entry in the long history of construction tragedies followed by temporary attention and eventual forgetting, depends on what happens after the cameras leave.

That is why this site exists.