TRAVIS — A car dealership that partially collapsed on Staten Island last week, killing a construction worker, was being demolished without required city permits, the Department of Buildings said.
A section of a mezzanine floor at the Dana Ford Lincoln dealership at 266 West Service Road fell in on Friday, authorities said.
Delfino Jesus Velazquez Mendizabal, 43, was trapped under the debris and was later pronounced dead at Richmond University Medical Center, fire officials said.
Three other workers were also in the building at the time but managed to get out and were not injured.
On Saturday, the Buildings Department issued a stop work order on the project because Formica Construction, the company demolishing the interior of the building, did not have permits for the work, 1010 Wins first reported. A full vacate order was also issued by the DOB on the property.
Formica obtained several permits for work on the site between 2013 and 2014, but all expired, including the most recent in August, according to DOB records.
An application for a permit for demolition of the building was filed in September to the DOB, records show.
A woman who answered the phone at Formica declined to comment.
Aside from the lack of permits, the contractor was also hit with several violations during construction last year, including one for storage of combustible material and potentially hazardous materials at the site, records show. Most have been resolved.
Mendizabal was not the first laborer to die while working on a Formica project. In 2003, Lorenzo Pavia was killed when the trench he was working in collapsed, according to the New York Times.
Kenneth Formica, owner of the company, pleaded guilty in 2007 to criminally negligent homicide for ordering Pavia to work in the trench even though it wasn't shored or sloped, the Times reported.
