Davenport Building Collapse: Cause, Lawsuits, and City Reforms

The Davenport building collapse refers to the May 28, 2023, partial collapse of a six-story apartment building at 324 Main Street in downtown Davenport, Iowa, which killed three residents, critically injured a fourth, and set off criminal and civil investigations that are still unfolding. No criminal charges were filed. A consolidated civil lawsuit against building owner Andrew Wold, several contractors and engineers, and the City of Davenport is now moving toward a first trial scheduled for August 2, 2027.

What Happened on May 28, 2023

At roughly 4:55 p.m. on a Sunday, the west side of the century-old building gave way. A residential unit dropped four stories and brick debris buried parts of the structure.¹²³

Quanishia “Peach” White Berry, 24, survived about eight hours trapped under debris in her fourth-floor apartment. Trauma surgeon Dr. Calvin Atwell performed an on-site above-the-knee amputation of her left leg using a knife and power saw after she became unresponsive.⁴

The building was fully dismantled by June 21, 2023. The city also ordered the evacuation of five residential units in the adjacent Executive Square Building after structural concerns surfaced during demolition.⁵

Why the Wall Fell

The City of Davenport commissioned SOCOTEC Engineering and White Birch Group LLC to investigate. Their Causes and Origins report, released September 7, 2023, identified two root causes.⁶

First, workers removed multiple layers of masonry in the three days before the collapse, and that removal “severely compromised” the western bearing wall, which had been built of five layers of clay brick. Second, the temporary shoring installed to hold the wall up during repairs was “grossly inadequate.” Shoring members were undersized, spaced too far apart for the amount of brick removed, and lacked proper restraint at the top and bottom. Investigators concluded that a proper shoring and phasing plan would have prevented the collapse.⁷⁸

The report pointed to a chain of contributing failures behind those two causes. Engineers and contractors had repeatedly misidentified the load-bearing west wall as a “nonstructural system.” Repair documents from 2020 through 2023 lacked the detail needed for contractors to execute the work properly or for city inspectors to verify it. No qualified design professional was on site supervising. And years of deferred maintenance had let water infiltration weaken the original masonry.⁷

Years of Warnings Before the Collapse

The building was a former hotel converted to apartments in 1985, housing tenants who used Section 8 and Veterans Administration Supplemental Housing vouchers. It was managed by Davenport Hotel LLC, an entity controlled by Andrew Wold.⁷

Starting in August 2020, the city issued a series of code violation notices for 324 Main Street. Inspectors that year found violations they described as “severe,” and internal discussions about potentially closing the building took place, though the city allowed it to remain open. Residents filed repeated complaints about broken elevators, lack of heat, no hot water, and water leaks. In March 2022, the city issued 19 citations against Wold for accumulated trash blocking building exits, resulting in $4,500 in fines. Between 2018 and 2023, the city issued multiple “Official Notice to Vacate” orders, yet the building stayed occupied.⁹¹⁰

Warnings about the west wall itself grew more urgent over time. In August 2020, an assistant fire marshal reported bricks falling from the facade. In February 2023, Mid-American Energy told the city its crews would no longer approach the southwest exterior wall until it was secured. On February 2, 2023, the chief building official issued a “Notice of Public Hazard” stating the west elevation was “gradually failing.”⁹⁷

Select Structural Engineering visited the same day and concluded the damage was “not an imminent danger to the entire building and its residents,” recommending incremental repairs. Later in February, a city log noted that the west wall appeared to have “collapsed into the scaffolding.” Bi-State Masonry warned both the city and Wold that a dangerous void had formed under the facade. Work stopped after repair cost estimates rose by $10,000.⁹

Four days before the collapse, Select Structural Engineering filed a report stating that a large section of the facade was ready to fall “imminently” and that bricked-over windows were “bulging outwards.” The same day, Wold applied for a permit to replace 100 linear feet of brick exterior. The city issued the permit on May 25. Contractors were working on the building’s exterior just hours before it fell.⁹¹

Why No One Was Charged Criminally

The Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation opened a probe in the summer of 2023 and submitted its report to the Scott County Attorney’s office that December.¹¹ In February 2025, Scott County Attorney Kelly Cunningham announced that no criminal charges would be filed against Wold or anyone else.¹²

Cunningham called the collapse “very simply, the structural failure of a building” and said evidence showed Wold had been actively trying to address the wall’s problems, including buying supplies and looking for bracing products in the days before the disaster. On involuntary manslaughter specifically, she said the charge requires either the commission of a crime that results in an unintentional death or reckless conduct causing death, and that the evidence did not support either theory. She drew a firm line: “Negligence is a civil concept, not a criminal one.”¹³¹²

The full DCI report, released publicly on June 4, 2025, detailed Wold’s awareness of the building’s “rapidly deteriorating condition.” It also described an incident in June 2023 when DCI agents attempted to serve a search warrant for Wold’s cellphone at his mother-in-law’s residence. According to agents, Wold ran from investigators into the house and locked the door before eventually surrendering the phone through his attorney.¹⁴

The report also disclosed that the day before the collapse, a city worker observed problems with the wall, took photographs, and shared them with the Downtown Davenport Partnership and the mayor’s office. A department employee then told the partnership that they “didn’t see anything had changed” since the repair permit was issued on May 25.¹⁴

A separate finding concerned city inspector Trishna Pradhan, who issued the May 25 repair permit before leaving for vacation. The DCI report found that after the collapse, Pradhan edited the inspection record to change the status of a pre-collapse inspection from “Passed” to “Incomplete.” The city had publicly attributed the change to a “technical glitch.” Development and Neighborhood Services Director Rich Oswald told DCI he would fire Pradhan for the alterations, and the city confirmed this in a June 1, 2025, statement.¹⁴¹⁵

Where Andrew Wold Is Now

Before the collapse, Wold controlled a portfolio of at least 22 properties. He was accused of using unlicensed, cash-paid workers through his company Alliance Contracting to cut costs on masonry repairs; city officials told investigators they had “no idea” who was doing the masonry work or whether they were licensed.¹⁵¹⁶

After the collapse, Wold sold 20 of his 22 Quad Cities properties.¹ He relocated to Florida, claiming a move date of May 1, 2024, and began working as a realtor in Venice, Florida, in November 2024. On December 18, 2024, he petitioned a Sarasota County court to change his legal name to Andrew Langel. A judge approved the petition on January 13, 2025.¹⁷ In January 2025, a separate lawsuit was filed within the civil case seeking to appoint an overseer for a trust containing Wold’s funds, with plaintiffs alleging a scheme to sell off properties.¹⁸

The Civil Lawsuits

Peach and Lexus Berry filed an 80-page lawsuit against the City of Davenport, Wold, and other parties within days of the collapse, alleging the defendants knew of building code violations and “imminent danger” but failed to evacuate residents. Lawsuits from the estates of the three deceased victims and others followed. By December 2023, the cases were consolidated into a single action in Scott County District Court under case number LACE137119.⁴¹⁸

The defendant list runs long. It includes Wold individually and as trustee for the 3320 W. Harbor Revocable Trust, Andrew Wold Investments LLC, Davenport Hotel LLC, Village Property Management LLC, Alliance Contracting LLC, Select Structural Engineering LLC, Bi-State Masonry Inc., CT Engineering Inc. (doing business as Townsend Engineering), Fuessel Masonry, and the City of Davenport along with individual employees including Trishna Pradhan and Richard Oswald. The plaintiffs allege common law negligence and nuisance. As of May 2025, nearly 40 additional “short-form petitions” had been added for other residents, visitors, and affected businesses.¹⁸

The Qualified Immunity Ruling

The case was paused while the City of Davenport appealed a threshold question: whether the city and its employees were entitled to qualified immunity under the Iowa Municipal Tort Claims Act. The district court denied the city’s motion to dismiss in January 2024.¹⁹

On November 7, 2025, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled for the plaintiffs. The court held that the qualified immunity provisions of Iowa Code § 670.4A apply only to state constitutional torts or statutory claims, not to common law tort claims like negligence and nuisance. Because the plaintiffs’ petition alleged only common law theories, the immunity statute did not shield the city or its employees. The court declined to address the separate public-duty doctrine question.²⁰²¹

Current Status and Trial Date

The discovery stay was lifted at a December 30, 2025, hearing. Depositions of liability witnesses run from March through June 2026, damage witness depositions from June through September 2026, and expert witness disclosures are due in the fall of 2026. The parties were ordered to attend a joint mediation session by February 26, 2026. The first trial is set for August 2, 2027. No settlements or verdicts have been reached.²²¹⁸

What the City Has Changed

Scrutiny of the Davenport building department expanded beyond 324 Main Street. A 2023 report cited depositions in which city employees were questioned about broader problems including allegations that log books had been ordered destroyed and that some inspectors’ license certifications had lapsed. The city auditor’s office opened an investigation into recent settlements in January 2024.²³

On November 13, 2024, the Davenport City Council unanimously approved ordinance changes for landlords and renters intended to prevent displacement due to substandard living conditions. The city also engaged an outside firm to present on potential building code changes at a July 2024 meeting.²³

1
Iowa Public Radio. Davenport, Two Years After Deadly Apartment Building Collapse
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KCCI. Recovery of Bodies From Davenport Apartment Collapse
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WTAP. Report Says Three Died of Blunt Force Injuries, Asphyxiation in Iowa Building Collapse
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CNN. Davenport Iowa Building Collapse Amputee Survivor
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City of Davenport. 324 Main Street Updates
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City of Davenport. 324 Main Street Partial Building Collapse
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City of Davenport. Causes and Origins Report — 324 Main Street Partial Building Collapse
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CNN. Davenport Iowa Building Collapse Investigation
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Nebraska Public Media. Davenport Inspection Records Show Complaints, Structural Issues at Collapsed Apartment Building
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RC Reader. 324 Main Street — How Did the City of Davenport Allow This Disaster to Happen
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WIFR. No Criminal Charges in Fatal Building Collapse
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KWQC. County Attorney Defends Decision on Davenport Building Collapse Charges
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Radio Iowa. County Attorney: Evidence Not There for Charges in Fatal Davenport Building Collapse
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Iowa Public Radio. Deadly Davenport Apartment Building Collapse Report Released
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Iowa Starting Line. Davenport Building Collapse — Andrew Wold
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KWQC. TV6 Investigates: Building Collapse Police Reports
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Our Quad Cities. Andrew Wold Has New Life in Florida, Court Records Show
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KWQC. What Is the Status of the Building Collapse Lawsuits
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Iowa Courts. In re Davenport Hotel Building Collapse, No. 24-0727
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FindLaw. In re Davenport Hotel Building Collapse, No. 24-0727
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Radio Iowa. Davenport Loses Appeal for Immunity in Deadly Building Collapse
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Our Quad Cities. Dates Determined in Partial Collapse Lawsuits Against Wold, City of Davenport, Others
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KWQC. Building Collapse Coverage