KC company renovating site where worker fell to his death had previous safety violations

A Kansas City company assisting in the renovations of a downtown building — where a worker fell to his death in an elevator shaft — has been the subject of multiple federal safety investigations, records show.

New Horizons LLC, also doing business as New Horizons Enterprises LLC, was contracted as part of an asbestos abatement at the former AT&T building at 500 E. Eighth St. Developers previously said the asbestos removal would cost millions as most of the building’s surfaces were “covered in spray-foam asbestos.”

Now more than one year later, New Horizons is embroiled in controversy over allegations that workers on the site operated without lighting or equipment that would protect them from inhaling asbestos and other carcinogens, which can be found in the insulation of older buildings.

Jose Garcia Sanchez, 34, of Nicaragua was one of the many Indianapolis workers sent to Kansas City for the asbestos treatment. In July, he fell to his death from the building’s 14th floor. Sanchez left behind a wife and two children, ages 13 and 17.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating. But data from OSHA showed New Horizons has paid nearly $6,000 in fines and violated health and safety standards in seven investigations over the last decade.

The OSHA “serious” citations largely related to safety concerns for employees working in asbestos treatment. OSHA’s website says such a violation indicates that the hazard would most likely result in death or serious physical harm, unless the employer “did not know or could not have known about the violation.”

Sanchez’s death sparked OSHA’s latest investigation into New Horizons on July 18. The company is under investigation alongside two others: the Bernstein Companies, which owns the building and is developing it into apartments, and Infinity Resources, the Indianapolis temp agency hiring workers for New Horizons.

“There’s an element of fear that’s involved here that sadly construction companies and subcontractors can use to their advantage,” said Manny Abarca, executive director of the Fair Contracting Alliance, an organization that advocates for construction workers.

He said the potential for exposure to asbestos fibers makes OSHA safety practices “very, very critical and very defined.”

“You’ve got several layers of protection that are (allegedly) not being followed. This is not new. This is what we’ve heard from other job sites at New Horizons,” he said.

The outcry from local labor activists led some Jackson County legislators to withdraw support for a year-long contract with New Horizons. The resolution, which appeared on the legislators’ agenda last Monday, would have allowed the company to provide environmental management services to various county departments.

“The intention was to assign it to committee,” said Donna Peyton, 2nd District at-large legislator. “But committee chair Megan Marshall withdrew the resolution and I was one of the people that concurred.”

After attending a rally that called for accountability in Sanchez’s death, Peyton, said she could not support such a proposal until the county committed to “monitoring the company more closely.”

“Knowing they were involved in hiring the gentleman that passed were contributing factors,” she said.

The Bernstein Companies, based in Washington, D.C., received a 10-year property tax break and historic preservation incentives from the city to finance the $82 million renovation of the AT&T building. While it was only built in 1973, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its brutalist architecture.

Stephanie Isaacson, president of New Horizons LLC, did not respond to requests for comment.

Violations

The seven OSHA investigations into New Horizons LLC concerned multiple building sites in Iowa, one of the seven states the company is licensed to do business in.

A January 2015 OSHA investigation of a Council Bluffs building where New Horizons was tasked with providing environmental remediation services found the company had violated six “serious” asbestos-related health and safety standards.

Each violation was resolved in an informal settlement, according to department records.

OSHA required New Horizons to display warning signs near areas where employees may be exposed to harmful toxins and place “critical barriers” over openings to further protect workers.

Vacuums with special filters, a disposable dust bag and a metal floor tool were required to clean the floors. A separate “decontamination” space was needed for workers to place their asbestos contaminated equipment, according to the records.

It said the company violated the standard requiring “a high degree of certainty that employee exposure will not exceed” regulated limits and another standard that required daily monitoring that is “representative of the exposure of each employee who is assigned to work within a regulated area.”

The company paid a fine of $3,375.

That October, New Horizons was fined again for another Council Bluffs building, where the company did not equip workers with a certain wire circuit interrupter for personnel protection, OSHA said.

It was fined $563.

The next year, New Horizons violated an OSHA health standard related to water pressure at a Des Moines building site. No fine was issued.

In Ottumwa, a New Horizons building site received three citations for violating standards meant to prevent “asbestos fiber release.”

The company was fined $1,875 in September 2017.

No fines were given for follow-up OSHA investigations in 2018, 2019 or 2020. But the building sites continued to violate standards for displaying warning signs at a safe distance. They also violated standards meant to limit access to potentially hazardous areas to authorized personnel only and to keep first aid kit resources individually sealed in a waterproof container.

In the last decade, no other fatalities on a New Horizons building were reported to OSHA, according to the department’s website.

The New Horizons website said the company is an environmental solutions firm. It specializes in site assessments, asbestos, lead-based paint and mold assessments, green building consulting, construction and project management.

The company also operates in Kansas, Colorado, South Dakota, Nebraska and Arkansas.