CHARLESTON — A federal judge has sided with city officials upholding a February order to vacate the Dockside condominium tower and surrounding townhomes.

In a ruling filed Sept. 10, U.S. District Court Judge David Norton denied a motion from nearly two dozen owners asking to return to their townhomes at the base of Charleston’s tallest building other than a church steeple.

“The court agrees that ‘[t]he City acted rationally due to the need to protect lives on the Dockside complex,” Norton wrote in his ruling that quoted the city's chief building official Ken Granata, who issued the evacuation order. “This situation clearly meets the requirements for an ‘extraordinary situation.”

More than six months have passed since the city ordered all residents to vacate 330 Concord St. — an excl

See Full Page