Is there are statute of limitation on unethical business?

I was in the Riverview once. 

When I was in business school, a professor held a small weekend brunch gathering. Lou Banks. He was a retired journalist - Fortune editor - who taught at Sloan. Courses like Business Ethics, the seminar I knew him from. I liked him a lot, and he encouraged me to pursue a career in business journalism. I did go so far as to take an interview he set up for me with either Business Week or the WSJ. (I remember what the editor looked like, and that he had an Irish-y name, but that's about it.) The job paid terribly (especially given that it required living in NYC, at that time a lot pricier than Boston) and, although I was tempted, I took a pass, forgoing a career that I probably would have enjoyed immeasurably. (I've never been much when it comes to taking good advice, that's for sure.)

Anyway, Lou and his wife had some of his students over for lunch, to their very nice modern apartment in the Riverview, which overlooked - what else - the Charles River.

It was the sort of apartment that Bob and Emily Hartley lived in on The Bob Newhart Show, a classic 70's sitcom. 

I have always preferred old, drafty, creaky, quirky, peculiar, character-rich dwelling places, so I was never going to live in the Riverview, but that one time I was there, I liked it just fine. And talk about location, location, location. Lovely, lovely, lovely. And a 15 minute stroll to Harvard Square.

In fact, just the sort of place I'd be interested in if I finally get sick of old, drafty, creaky, quirky, peculiar, character-rich dwelling places (which I'm forecasting will happen in the next few years).

Not that the Riverview (which at some point was converted from luxury apartments to luxury condos) is actually modern. At least not by modern standards. It was built in 1963, and I'm guessing a lot of the units were pretty much cast in amber a long time ago. (I looked at one on Zillow that featured the oak-trimmed almond formica kitchen cabinets that slayed in the 1980's. Not that there's anything wrong with them. In fact, I actually like them just fine. And lived with them for the first 20+ years I spent in my very own up close and personal condo. Still, I don't think they're what anyone wants these days.)

But I digress...

The Riverview, it turns out, is more or less a goner.

In November, thanks to issues with the building's failing concrete, residents were evacuated. When they left, the residents - most of them elderly, because who wouldn't want to spend their sunset years overlooking the Charles River? It's absolutely the sort of place I'd consider living when I get sick of... - were under the impression that they could be out for up to a year while the repairs are made.

Unfortunate. Costly. But doable.

Now it looks like there may be no going home. 

In weekly meetings in recent months with the company that manages the building, they have learned that the building may be too expensive to fix and therefore unsalvageable — and ripe for being demolished, according to several unit owners with knowledge of the discussions who spoke with the Globe.

“We all need to go through the five stages of grief,” said Linda Salter, 78, who said she bought a unit in the building only two years ago. “Everything is on the table.” (Source: The Boston Globe)

And none of what's on the table is going to be all that easy to swallow. 

One option would be to reinforce the building with supports capable of holding its concrete slabs safely aloft, a feat they were told could cost tens of millions of dollars and would involve a number of other related and costly projects, including asbestos remediation.

Even a fully reinforced building would continue to have issues typical of a building that old, they said. For example, the problem with the building’s concrete that triggered the evacuation was discovered in the midst of a roof-repair project, which was paused when a construction crew discovered it but would still need to be completed.

If doing all of that repair work is too expensive, owners said, there is another option: demolishing it and starting fresh, perhaps building a bigger complex with more units they could move back into, or sell.

Or the owners could just cut their losses and sell the land to a developer. And there are no doubt plenty of developers who'd love to get their mitts on this very choice location.  

In the meantime, the displaced resident are still on the hook for their mortgages, utilities, insurance, and condo fees. (Attempts to get reimbursed by their insurers for loss of use have not been successful.)

I feel really awful for these folks. 

Some have lived there for decades; some are more recent: downsizers hoping to spend their golden years taken care of in a secure and comfortable setting. By all accounts, the Riverview was a pretty gemütlichkeit place, especially for those who'd been there a long time. 

Linda Salter (age 78), although a relative newbie, was hoping that the Riverview would be her forever home. 

Saying goodbye to the friends she made — many of them also seniors who had hoped to age in place together there in what she called a “naturally occurring retirement community” — would be hard.

I'll bet. That loss of community must loom mighty large. And the pressure of having to start over when you thought you had it all figured out in a "naturally occurring retirement community." 

There's also the monetary loss. It's unlikely that any of the Riverview residents are paupers - a two BR, two BA unit sold last spring for $1.7M - but when the value of a $1.7M property plummets to near zero, well, there aren't a ton of folks who can happily sustain the hit. And if you're an elder, there's less time to make it up.

I am so very sorry for their troubles...

And by the way, that failing concrete? It's been traced to the use of substandard concrete way back in the early 1960's. I'm sure that those who made the decision to do shoddy work, those that might have taken a pile o' cash to turn a blind eye to any corrupt dealings, those that profited from unethical business behavior, are all long gone.

Lou Banks has been dead for a good long time, but I know what he would have thought of them. He wasn't teaching Business Ethics for nothing. Lou was, of course, a World War II vet. A pilot. I'm pretty sure that, just for the hell of it, he would have wanted to exhume their bodies and kicked them in the arse.

Too bad it's too late to sue those particular bastards.