Are Most Soft Story Buildings In Southern California Retrofitted?

If you own a building with a ground-floor garage or retail space in Southern California, you’ve probably lost sleep over this question. The short answer is no—most soft story buildings in this region are still not retrofitted, despite years of mandatory ordinances and millions in public funding. By 2024, estimates from city building departments suggest only about 40–50% of identified soft story structures in Los Angeles alone have completed retrofits. That leaves thousands of buildings—and the families inside them—vulnerable to the next major earthquake.

Key Takeaways

• Soft story buildings are structures with an open ground floor (parking, retail) and weak lateral resistance.
• Many cities in Southern California have mandatory retrofit ordinances, but compliance is staggered and often slow.
• Retrofits typically cost between $80,000 and $200,000 per building, depending on size and soil conditions.
• Without a retrofit, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake or larger can cause partial or total collapse of the first floor.
• Owners who wait risk not only structural failure but also rising insurance premiums and loss of rental income.

What Actually Makes a Building “Soft Story”

We’ve walked through dozens of these buildings over the years, and the pattern is almost always the same. You pull up to a 1970s apartment complex or a mixed-use building from the 1960s. The ground floor is open—maybe a parking garage, maybe a row of storefronts with big windows. Above it, two or three stories of wood-frame apartments sit on top of what amounts to stilts.

The term “soft story” refers to a floor that is significantly less stiff than the floors above it. In an earthquake, the ground floor can’t resist the lateral forces, so it racks sideways. The upper floors, which are stiffer because they have interior walls and shear panels, basically ride on top of this collapsing base. We’ve seen buildings where the first floor pancaked entirely, leaving the upper floors sitting on the ground at a weird angle.

This isn’t a design flaw that was unknown back then. Engineers in the 1960s and 70s understood the problem, but building codes at the time didn’t require the kind of steel moment frames or plywood shear walls we use today. So we’re left with a huge inventory of buildings that were constructed under outdated standards.

The Real Numbers: How Many Have Actually Been Retrofitted?

Let’s look at Los Angeles, since it’s the largest test case. The city’s mandatory retrofit ordinance, passed in 2015, identified roughly 13,500 soft story buildings. As of early 2024, about 6,500 had completed retrofits. That sounds like progress until you realize the deadline for most of these buildings was 2020 or 2022, depending on the risk tier. Thousands of owners are past due, and the city has only recently started issuing fines.

Santa Monica, which has its own stricter ordinance, reports about 70% compliance. But that’s a smaller pool—maybe 800 buildings. In unincorporated county areas, compliance drops to under 30%. The pattern is clear: wealthier neighborhoods and commercial corridors get retrofitted first. Older, lower-income areas lag behind, often because owners can’t afford the work or can’t pass the cost to tenants without rent control issues.

We’ve talked to building owners in Koreatown who told us they’re stuck. They want to retrofit, but the cost would force them to raise rents, and the city’s rent stabilization laws make that nearly impossible. So they wait. And every year that passes, the probability of a major seismic event increases.

Why Owners Drag Their Feet

There’s a common misconception that owners are just cheap or careless. In our experience, it’s usually more complicated. Here are the real reasons we hear from property owners:

Cost uncertainty. A retrofit isn’t a fixed price. You might get a bid for $120,000, but once the contractor opens up the walls and finds dry rot, termite damage, or foundation cracks, that number can jump. We’ve seen projects go from $100,000 to $180,000 after discovery.

Tenant disruption. Retrofitting a soft story building almost always requires vacating the ground floor. For a building with retail tenants, that means lost revenue. For residential buildings, you might have to relocate families temporarily. In a tight rental market like Los Angeles, that’s a nightmare.

Financing hurdles. Traditional banks are reluctant to lend for seismic retrofits because the work doesn’t increase the property’s market value in a way that justifies the loan. Some owners end up using high-interest private money or pulling from personal savings.

Confusion about deadlines. The ordinances vary by city. Los Angeles has a phased timeline based on risk score. Santa Monica has its own schedule. Some owners think they have more time than they actually do, or they assume the city will offer extensions.

We’re not excusing the delay. But understanding why it happens helps us figure out how to push through it.

The Retrofit Methods That Actually Work

Not all retrofits are created equal. We’ve seen buildings where the contractor slapped a few plywood sheets on the walls and called it done. That’s not a retrofit—that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. A proper soft story retrofit addresses the building’s weak lateral system.

Steel Moment Frames

This is the gold standard for most soft story buildings. Steel beams and columns are installed along the ground floor to create a rigid frame that can sway without collapsing. The frame is bolted into the existing foundation and tied into the upper floor diaphragms. It’s expensive—usually $150,000 to $250,000 for a typical four-unit building—but it’s reliable.

The downside is that steel frames take up space. In a parking garage, you lose a few spots. In a retail space, you lose square footage. Some owners try to hide the frames behind drywall, but that’s a bad idea because you need access for inspections.

Plywood Shear Walls

For smaller buildings or those with less open floor space, plywood shear walls can work. The idea is to add thick plywood panels to the interior walls of the ground floor, creating a stiff vertical element that resists lateral forces. This method is cheaper—around $80,000 to $120,000—but it only works if you have enough wall space to install them.

The problem we see most often is that owners try to use shear walls in a building that has too many garage doors or storefront windows. You can’t put a shear wall where a roll-up door needs to go. If the building has a wide open frontage, steel frames are usually the only option.

Foundation Bolting and Cripple Wall Bracing

This is more of a partial retrofit, often used in buildings with a crawl space or a short first floor. It involves bolting the sill plate to the foundation and adding plywood bracing to the cripple walls (the short walls between the foundation and the first floor). It’s not a complete solution for a true soft story building, but it’s better than nothing.

We’ve seen buildings where the owner did only foundation bolting, thinking it was enough. It’s not. If the ground floor is open and weak, bolting the foundation won’t stop the upper floors from collapsing sideways.

What Happens When the Big One Hits

We’re not fearmongering here. Southern California has a 60% probability of a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake in the next 30 years, according to the USGS. That’s the same size as the 1994 Northridge quake, which caused over $40 billion in damage and killed 57 people.

The buildings that collapsed in Northridge? Many of them were soft story structures. The Northridge Meadows apartment complex, where 16 people died, was a classic soft story building with parking on the ground floor. That same building type exists all over Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange County today.

We’ve inspected buildings that survived Northridge without visible damage, only to find that the connections between floors had already started to fail. The next quake could finish the job. Retrofitting isn’t about fixing a problem that already happened—it’s about preventing one that’s statistically almost certain.

The Financial Reality for Owners

Let’s talk money, because that’s what keeps owners up at night.

Retrofit Method	Typical Cost (4-unit building)	Space Impact	Permit Timeline	Insurance Premium Impact
Steel moment frame	$150,000–$250,000	Loses 2–4 parking spots	4–8 months	15–25% reduction
Plywood shear walls	$80,000–$120,000	Minimal interior loss	3–6 months	10–20% reduction
Foundation bolting only	$15,000–$30,000	None	2–4 months	5–10% reduction (partial)
Full structural upgrade	$180,000–$300,000	Varies	6–12 months	20–30% reduction

The numbers are rough, and they vary wildly by location. A building in West Hollywood with tight lot lines will cost more than one in the San Fernando Valley with easy access. Soil conditions matter too—buildings on liquefiable soil need deeper foundations.

Here’s the part that surprises most owners: retrofitting can actually save money over time. Insurance companies are starting to offer significant discounts for retrofitted buildings. We’ve seen premiums drop by 20–30% after a certified retrofit. Over a decade, that can offset a big chunk of the construction cost.

When DIY or Partial Work Isn’t Enough

We’ve had owners ask us if they can just add a few steel columns themselves, or hire a handyman to bolt the foundation. Please don’t. Seismic retrofitting requires a licensed structural engineer and a contractor who specializes in this work. The engineering alone can cost $5,000 to $15,000, but it’s non-negotiable.

The biggest mistake we see is owners trying to save money by skipping the engineering report. They think they know what the building needs because they saw a YouTube video or a neighbor did it. Then the city inspector shows up, flags the work, and the owner ends up paying double to fix it.

If you’re considering a retrofit, start with a structural engineer who has experience with soft story buildings in Southern California. They’ll do a site visit, review the original plans (if they exist), and give you a scope of work. From there, you can get competitive bids from contractors.

Alternatives to Full Retrofit

Not every building needs the full steel frame treatment. If your building has a relatively stiff ground floor—say, concrete walls on three sides and only one open face—you might get away with a less invasive solution. Some owners opt for:

• Fiber-reinforced polymer wraps on existing columns
• Addition of steel braces in existing wall cavities
• Supplementary shear walls in stairwells or utility rooms

These partial solutions can reduce cost by 30–50%, but they’re not appropriate for every building. The engineer will tell you if a partial retrofit meets the city’s requirements. Don’t take a contractor’s word for it.

The Local Picture: What Southern California Cities Require

If you own a building in Los Angeles, you’re under Ordinance 183893, which requires retrofits by a specific deadline based on your building’s risk score. Santa Monica has its own ordinance that’s even stricter. West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Pasadena all have their own rules.

The patchwork of regulations can be confusing. We’ve worked with owners who thought they were compliant because they got a permit in one city, only to find out their building in another jurisdiction needed additional work. If you own multiple properties, it’s worth hiring a consultant who tracks these ordinances.

One thing that’s consistent across all cities: the deadline is real, and the penalties are increasing. Los Angeles started issuing fines of up to $500 per day for non-compliant buildings in 2023. Some owners are now paying more in fines than they would have spent on the retrofit.

A Final Word on the Human Cost

We’ve spent a lot of time on numbers and regulations, but let’s not forget what this is really about. When the next earthquake hits, the buildings that collapse will be the ones that weren’t retrofitted. People will die. Families will lose everything. And the owners who chose to wait will face lawsuits, insurance claims, and possibly criminal liability.

We’re not saying this to scare anyone into a rash decision. But we’ve seen the aftermath of Northridge, and we’ve talked to owners who wish they had acted sooner. The retrofit is expensive. The disruption is real. But the alternative is worse.

If you own a soft story building in Southern California, get an engineering assessment this year. Not next year. Not when the city sends you a notice. Now. The cost of not retrofitting is far higher than the cost of doing it right.