Local contractors are seeing a large uptick in business after the Davenport building collapse

(WQAD) – The City of Davenport has stuck true to their word, increasing building inspections since the apartment building collapse in May. This has led to local contractors seeing a large uptick in business.

“A lot of the buildings need repair,” said Co-owner of R.A. Masonry Ryan Shaffer. “The city has been going through and citing people, recommending work to be done. We’ve gotten quite a few calls from different customers needing small repairs to major repairs.”

ABC 6 sister station WQAD was first introduced to R.A. Masonry as the company that collapsed building owner Andrew Wold turned down because its bid to repair the now collapsed building was too high.

Reporters met Shaffer outside one of his nearly complete projects in downtown Davenport.

“This building here, we re-bricked the whole front of the building,” Shaffer said. “Did tuck pointing, which is grinding out the mortar, replaced steel lintels.”

The building collapse was a warning sign for everyone. 

“Going the cheap route isn’t always the best route,” Shaffer said. “We want to double check everything as accurately as we can. So we’re not overlooking anything.”

Ryan says his company has gotten over 15 new jobs since the building collapse, doubling business. One project R.A. Masonry will begin in a couple weeks is located two blocks from the collapse sight. That building will be repaired in two phases, with phase one taking about one month to complete, and costing over $50,000, according to Shaffer.

“We’re gonna be replacing or repairing all the bad bricks, sagging bricks, falling bricks,” Shaffer said.

These repairs are important and a good step forward. Unfortunately, a tragedy had to occur for people to take notice.