So I have an answer to the question yesterday about whether the sprinklers installed in the City Administration Building are actually hooked up.
Mario Sierra, director of the city’s General Services Department, says the sprinklers do work —but “every floor does not have sprinklers.” It turns out only five of the 15 floors in City Hall, plus the basement, will get doused from above in the event of a fire.
The City Council has repeatedly waived the sprinkler requirements for City Hall while it mulls a proposal to build a new city headquarters.
At a City Council committee meeting Wednesday, both Councilman Kevin Faulconer and CCDC vice president Jeff Graham said they’ve heard the sprinklers aren’t actually connected to water.
Sierra said that was true for a time, as city officials apparently were waiting for sprinklers to be installed throughout the building after the first sets were installed in 1999. But sometime after that, Sierra said, city officials figured it would be better to have a few functioning sprinklers than none and connected the sprinklers to the main water pipe.