April 08, 2026
Molly McVety/PhillyVoice
Emergency crews responded to a partial collapse of a parking garage under construction at 30th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue on Wednesday afternoon. At least one man is dead, police said.
A parking garage under construction in Grays Ferry partially collapsed on Wednesday afternoon, killing one man and trapping two others who remain missing at the site, police said.
The garage at 30th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue collapsed at 2:16 p.m. The site is on the east side of Grays Ferry Avenue, across the street from the Grays Ferry Shopping Center.
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A man rescued from the scene died at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center shortly after 3 p.m., a police spokesperson said. Firefighters were unable to immediately enter the rubble to search for others before stabilizing the remaining structure
"This is going to be a protracted operation," Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Jeffrey Thompson said Wednesday afternoon. "The building is a seven-story garage that is under construction. It is compromised. For the safety of my team, we have to stabilize that structure before we can continue our search-and-rescue operations."
Mayor Cherelle Parker provided additional details during a news conference at the scene Wednesday night, vowing to determine what went wrong.
"The city will investigate this garage collapse thoroughly and efficiently to learn all of the relevant facts of this terrible tragedy, and we will continue to communicate directly with the the people of Philadelphia," Parker said.
A preliminary investigation found that the collapse occurred during the installation of precast concrete floor decking and roof segments for a stairwell, Parker said. One of the roof segments fell to the segment below it, triggering a progressive collapse of all seven levels.
The fire department is working at the scene overnight with building engineers and experts in technical rescue, including members of Pennsylvania Task Force 1, an urban search and rescue team overseen by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. There is no timeline for the rescue operation.
"We will not stop until we have looked through every part of this affected structure to ensure that everyone is accounted for," Thompson said Wednesday night, joining the mayor and other city officials. "...We have to very carefully and methodically deconstruct this building for the safety of the people working on it and ultimately for the safety of the first responders who will continue the search."
The federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration also is on site along with officials from the city's Department of Licenses & Inspections, which has begun its own investigation.
Philadelphia Fire Department crews respond to the scene at 30th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue, where a parking garage under construction at the site collapsed Wednesday afternoon.
The 70-foot-tall parking garage is a project undertaken late last year by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, which sought to add parking capacity to its expanding Roberts Center and Schuylkill Yards development zone. Some community groups had pushed back against the project, holding protests to halt construction and advocate for a community center or clinic. Construction costs for the project are listed at more than $32 million.
Parker said CHOP has fully cooperated with the investigation. Hospital officials said they will share additional information as it becomes available.
"We are prioritizing the safety of the construction workers at this time and working closely with the City of Philadelphia and our construction partners," CHOP spokesperson Dan Alt said in a statement.
The contractor for the parking garage is HSC Builders and Construction, based in Exton. The subcontractor involved in the installation of the stairwell's floor decking and roof segments is Precast Services Inc., which has offices in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Parker said the precast segments that collapsed were manufactured offsite and installed by the manufacturer. The requirements for precast concrete installation fall outside standard inspections by L&I, Parker said, and are instead part of a special designation involving periodic inspections by a private firm.
"These inspections were assigned to Valerie Moody of GAI Construction Monitoring Services," Parker said.
L&I plans to conduct a full audit of all parties involved in the work on the garage.
In addition to firefighters and emergency responders, workers with Philadelphia Gas Works, the Philadelphia Water Department and SEPTA officials were at the scene Wednesday afternoon.
Police plan to keep traffic shut down on Grays Ferry Avenue from 29th to 33rd streets on Thursday. The businesses in the shopping plaza across from the garage site also will be closed.
"Please stay away from this location while the crews are here doing what they need to do," Deputy Police Commissioner John Stanford said. "... The best thing you can do is to stay away from the location and pray for everyone that's involved in this situation."
