Collapsed Miami beach condo tower hadn't been certified since 1981

Collapsed Miami beach condo tower hadn’t been certified since 1981 when it was built and has been ‘sinking into the ground since the NINETIES’

• Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, was built in 1981 and hasn’t been recertified since then 
• Shimon Wdowinski, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Florida International University, did a study on the building last year
• He found that it had been sinking 2mm a year since the 1990s into the ground  
• Miami Dade Building Code states buildings only have to be certified every 40 years 
• The Champlain Towers South Association hired an engineer to review structural and electrical updates ahead of its first certification
• It was also in the process of re-roofing when the building partially collapsed on Thursday 
• Officials have no idea what caused the building to collapse yet 
• There are now fears the rest of it will collapse soon, further reducing the chances of finding any survivors 
• Bruce Masia, a local building manager, said the roof renovation will be looked at 
• He asked whether it put any additional weight on the building that it couldn’t withstand  

The Miami building that collapsed on Thursday morning killing at least one person and leaving 99 missing was due for re-certification and had been sinking, it was claimed.

USA Today reported that last year, Shimon Wdowinski, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Florida International University, did a study on the building and found it to be unstable. 

He said on Thursday that he knew instantly which building had collapsed when he heard news reports of it.  

‘I looked at it this morning and said ‘Oh my god.” We did detect that,’ he said. His study was part of a wider look at how buildings in Miami were sinking generally with rising sea levels caused by climate change. 

Champlain Towers South was completed in 1981 but hasn’t been updated significantly since then. There are 136 condos inside and most belong to first-time homeowners. Some have sold for more than $2million. 55 of the condos collapsed on Thursday. 

Miami Dade building code dictates that buildings have to be re-certified every 40 years so the building was due to be recertified for the first time this year. 

Unspecified repairs are said to have been identified, although the condo company’s attorney Kenneth Direktor insisted it was too early to speculate about what had happened.  

A resident also sued in 2015 claiming building management did nothing to repair cracks from water damage.  

Champlain Towers South was completed in 1981 but hasn’t been updated significantly since then. There are 136 condos inside and most belong to first-time homeowners. Some have sold for more than $2million. 55 of the condos collapsed on Thursday.

A closer view of the roof of the building, which was being redone. Officials are at a loss over what caused the collapse but local building managers are asking whether the roof renovation had anything to do with it 

To get it up to snuff, the Champlain Towers South Association had hired an engineer who was planning ‘structural and electrical’ updates, but hadn’t started it yet, according to Kenneth Direktor, a lawyer for the association who spoke briefly to The Miami Herald on Thursday after the collapse. 

He didn’t say what the needed updates were.  

One realtor who has multiple apartments in the building said it was in ‘OK shape’, adding: ‘They were just starting repairs to upgrade. ‘ 

‘The agent didn’t specify what those updates were but said they hadn’t begun yet. 

Work was being done on the roof of the property and the Surfside Mayor said investigators would look into whether or not that may have caused the collapse in anyway. 

Bruce Masia of KW Property Management & Consulting told Biz Journal that the ongoing roof renovation on the property could have added extra weight that the building couldn’t withstand. 

Shimon Wdowinski, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Florida International University, did a study on the building and found it to be unstable

The core of the investigation into what happened, in that case, would be why the building couldn’t withstand the extra weight. 

‘Buildings don’t fall down right away. They fall down because there are problems and those problems need attention,’ he said. 

Surfside Mayor Charles W. Burkett said the roof renovations should not have contributed to the collapse, nor does the building’s age. 

He fears the rest of the building is going to collapse. 

”That is heartbreaking because it doesn’t mean to me that we are going to be successful, as successful as we want to be to find people alive,’ he said on Thursday afternoon. 

A Miami-Dade Police helicopter flies over Champlain Towers South Condo after a wing of the multistory building collapsed, Thursday, June 24, 2021, in Surfside, Florida. The cause of the collapse has not yet been proven 

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