Some key things to know about the damage and repairs to the partially collapsed Surfside condo building
As families mourn and worry for their loved ones, some Surfside residents and officials are criticizing the management of the building, saying more should have been done to prevent the structure from crashing down in the middle of the night last week.
Officials say they still haven’t found what triggered the collapse.
From an early construction halt to assurances that the building was fine, here is what we know so far about the damage and repairs the condo underwent:
- Early halts to construction: Before Champlain Towers South and its sister building opened, there was controversy around its construction, which violated local regulations, documents show. The Surfside acting town manager at the time, George Curti, told the building complex’s contractor in a Dec. 2, 1980, letter that “you are instructed to immediately cease any further construction on any penthouses” at either of the Champlain Towers buildings. The town attorney had determined that the penthouses were “a violation of the Code of the Town of Surfside,” Curti wrote. The following week, the town council passed an ordinance granting the buildings an exception, allowing the penthouse construction to go forward, Curti wrote in a follow-up letter on Dec. 11. The decades-old controversy was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Monday. The issue was over the buildings’ height: The penthouses had not been in the original plans and they brought both buildings above the town’s 12-story height limit, the Journal reported.
- The 2018 report: Maryland-based Morabito Consultants performed a structural analysis of the building as part of Champlain Towers South’s 40-year recertification effort — a stringent process for updates and improvements enacted after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Morabito Consultants’ structural field survey had noted “abundant cracking and spalling” in concrete columns and walls, “exposed, deteriorating rebar” and failing waterproofing beneath the pool deck and entrance drive that was causing “major structural damage.”
- 2020 letter highlights extensive damage and attempted repairs: A nine-page October letter from Morabito Consultants to association board president Jean Wodnicki provided the scope of some of the damage in the pool area and the work being done to address it. Loose concrete around the perimeter of the pool pump room that showed signs of cracking, spalling and deterioration — presenting a “fall hazard” — had been removed, the summary said. Morabito Consultants noted it could not perform all of the repair work in the pool area because of concerns about stability. The firm also needed access to the inside of the pool but had been told it needed to remain open during the work, the letter delivered last year said. There is currently no indication that the concrete deterioration was a contributing factor to the collapse, but it does highlight major repair work needed at the Champlain Towers South condominium complex.
- “The concrete deterioration is accelerating”: After inspecting the building in 2018, Morabito wrote in his report that “failed waterproofing” below the pool deck was “causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas” and warned that failure to replace it in the near future would cause “concrete deterioration to expand exponentially.” A 2021 letter to the building residents from the condominium association’s president confirmed that the exponential deterioration had indeed taken place in the interim years. “The concrete deterioration is accelerating,” wrote Jean Wodnicki, the association president. “The observable damage such as in the garage has gotten significantly worse since the initial [2018] inspection.”
- An estimated $15 million in repairs needed: The condo association debated an estimated $9 million in repairs to the building in 2018, and disputes over the lackluster response in tackling the repairs led to five of the seven board members resigning that year, the Washington Post reported, citing board meeting minutes and association president Anette Goldstein’s resignation letter. The estimated cost for repairs had grown to about $15 million by the time the work was approved by the board in 2021, according to an assessment letter obtained by CNN. Those costs were to be paid by the residents.
Read more about the building’s damage and repairs here.
