Second Danbrook One engineer accused of contributing to the building's flaws

A second senior engineer involved in the 11-storey Danbrook One building’s faulty structural design has been accused of wrongdoing by the professional association that oversees engineers’ work.

Ted Sorenson, the principal engineer at Sorenson Trilogy Engineering, is accused by the Engineers and Geoscientists of BC of unprofessional conduct and incompetence resulting in a structural design for the residential high-rise that wasn’t up to the BC Building Code’s seismic standards. The building was evacuated in December 2019 when the City of Langford revoked the occupancy permit.

The current owner, Centurion Property Associates, has completed remedial construction work, and the building has been slowly refilling with new tenants since May. It also changed the name and address to RidgeView Place at 2770 Claude Road.

The main structural engineer on the project was Brian McClure, who Capital Daily reported last week has been stripped of his accreditation and ordered to pay a $25K fine and $32K in costs. Now his boss faces a similar review for his role in the faulty design.

‍ Failure to properly review design and recognize subordinate's limits, citation says

‍"The existence of the defects … demonstrates incompetence on your part," EGBC wrote in a citation to Sorenson. The professional body says Sorenson failed to take the time to properly review the structural design, which was not properly integrated with the building’s architectural design, and that Sorenson failed to complete the required regular checks on the firm’s own engineering work on the designs.

The citation also says Sorenson should have known "McClure lacked the training and ability required to competently complete the structural design" for a building of this kind.

McClure’s experience had been on 5-storey wood-frame buildings, and that knowledge does not transfer to an 11-storey concrete and steel building. Sorenson Trilogy was the structural engineer on several other multi-residential projects in Greater Victoria, but none listed on its website appear to have been taller than 5 storeys.

McClure ran his own engineering firm, Trilogy Structural Engineering for 11 years before it amalgamated into Sorenson Trilogy in 2016.

A date for Sorenson’s hearing is to be determined, and the EGBC has put no interim restrictions on his work. At the time of publishing, Sorenson had not responded to requests for comment.