Miami Condo Collapse Is a Tragedy, But Also a Warning

When the 12-story Champlain Towers South condo in Miami, Florida suburb Surfside collapsed in the middle of the night, it was a tragedy in the classic sense. Because it might have been prevented. The event also serves as a warning, according to some experts.

As noted in a statement by Morabito Consultants, an engineering firm retained in 2018 by the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association ahead of a mandatory 40-year building recertification, “At that time, we also provided the condominium association with an estimate of the probable costs to make the extensive and necessary repairs. Among other things, our report detailed significant cracks and breaks in the concrete, which required repairs to ensure the safety of the residents and the public.”

The association brought the firm back in 2020 to prepare a repair and restoration plan, but nothing was done in time. 

Surfside’s mayor, Charles Burkett, told reporters, “There’s no reason for this building to go down like that unless someone literally pulls out the supports from underneath, or they get washed out, or there’s a sinkhole or something like that, because it just went down,” according to NBC.

But that isn’t true, according to Jesse Keenan, an associate professor of real estate at Tulane University’s School of Architecture, who reviewed the publicly available documents. 

“There were some design errors in the building, and they weren’t properly managing water,” Keenan says. “Concrete, when it absorbs water, changes the pH and a chemical reaction that separates the concrete from the rebar. It’s very expensive to fix.” But possible. And probably necessary for other buildings in the coming future.

“I think it’s worth stepping back and recognizing that in New York, South Florida, Arizona, and other parts of the country, we have significant populations living in condominiums and coops,” says Keenan. “Those building are facing their end of their useful life.”

Fixing such buildings can be massively expensive. Keenan said the likely cost to repair the Champlain Towers South would have been $20 million to $25 million. Costs build over time and the condo and condominium associations often don’t raise the necessary funds.

“What most do is wait and be reactive until there’s a leak in the structure, a leak in the roof, and say now we have to fix this rather than doing general maintenance,” says Greg Eisinger, a partner at the firm of Eisinger Law, which represents in his estimate 500 to 700 community associations across Florida. “A lot of times, to obtain money to get an engineer report or fix a roof or do major construction work, it requires either a special assessment or a loan from a bank,” Eisinger says. “They need the community, the members, to vote for the expenditure. And it can still be hard to get the requisite vote from people to spend money.”

“I think this is a wakeup call to many older condominiums to make sure their buildings are being property maintained,” Eisinger says. “Some of our clients have reached out and asked for advice moving forward.”

But alarm clocks could give way to lullabies. 

“I think it’s too early to see if the association community is going to react to this or if it’s … going back to their normal practices of being reactive rather than proactive,” Eisinger says.