Exploding windows land Minnesota company in court

Philadelphia’s glass-faced Riverwalk apartment towers offer an infinity pool, hardwood floors and an on-site Starbucks. One unadvertised feature surprised residents: windows that can spontaneously explode. Now the buildings’ owner is suing its Bloomington-based window provider, Apogee Enterprises. The lawsuit says the windows were under warranty, but Apogee orchestrated “a coordinated corporate shell game designed to avoid liability for the dangerous defective glass.” In its Oct. 27 federal complaint, Philadelphia’s PMC Property Group says Apogee used two of its subsidiaries to create confusion about what companies provided which products and services — all to avoid fulfilling the warranty on the windows, which cost $50 million to install in 2021 and 2022 in the Riverwalk buildings, as well as a third property. “No one will accept responsibility for the defective glass, and no one will even say where it came from,” PMC says in the complaint. Advertisement Apogee and its subsidiaries — glassmaker Viracon and window-unit maker Wausau Window and Wall Systems — declined to comment for this story, as did PMC. The Apogee companies’ window systems are widely used in new construction. Viracon’s glass has landed in more than 100,000 buildings since 1970, its website said. That includes U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. Apogee reported profit of nearly $109 million in the 2025 fiscal year on an adjusted basis. Local media call PMC the largest apartment owner in Philadelphia. Window systems make up “nearly the entire exterior of” the Riverwalk apartments.