‘The building was in OK shape’: The upscale condo near Miami Beach still collapsed
Rene Rodriguez, Rebecca San Juan, Taylor Dolven and Michelle Marchante Miami Herald (TNS)

MIAMI — As far as ages of buildings go, the 12-story oceanfront condo tower that partially collapsed Thursday morning in Surfside was a relative youngster.

The Champlain Towers South Condo at 8777 Collins Ave. was built in 1981 by a group of developers, Champlain Towers South Associates, that included the late philanthropist Nathan Reiber. A slightly smaller building with fewer units, Champlain Towers North Condo, was built at the same time. A third building, Champlain Towers East Condo, was added in 1991.

All three towers are 12 stories tall, but the collapsed South tower has the most units, 136. It was the first project to be built in Surfside after Miami-Dade County placed a moratorium on new developments during the 1970s, said Daniel Ciraldo, executive director of the Miami Design Preservation League.

At issue was its water and sewer systems. Surfside struggled financially during the 1970s, Ciraldo said, and its infrastructure degraded so badly that the county required upgrades before any new projects were approved.

To get Champlain Towers off the ground, its developers paid Surfside $200,000 in late 1979 — half of the cost for a new sewer system. With the new system in place, construction soon started on the project, Ciraldo said.

The building was sold as a luxury property, with ads touting its “elegant” residences, ranging in size from one to three bedrooms, and the tower’s proximity to Bal Harbour Shops. According to the building’s blueprints, between 10 and 12 units occupied each floor.

At the time of the Champlain East’s approval by the planning and zoning board in 1990, many residents complained about the possibility of Surfside becoming a concrete canyon and objected to the size of the buildings, which now seem modest by comparison. Eighty Seven Park, the luxury condo building located just south of the Champlain towers, is 18 stories tall.

Once the first two towers were completed, international buyers flocked to the Champlain condos. “A lot of foreign people were moving to South Florida for political stability that we had in the United States,” he said. “They wanted to live on the beach.”

Amenities in the 136-unit building included a pool, barbecue area, tennis courts and a parking garage, “which was a newer thing,” Ciraldo said, “compared to hotels, where you just drove up to the entrance.”

At the time of the collapse, county inspectors were reviewing the building’s structure, Ciraldo said. According to the Miami-Dade County building code, all residential buildings are required to undergo a recertification process when they hit 40 years. The process includes inspections to ensure the building is habitable and safe.

“The building was in OK shape,” said Madeleine Romanello, a real estate agent with Compass who had multiple listings in the building. “They were just starting repairs to upgrade.”

The Champlain Towers East Condo Association recently hired an engineer to develop specifications for electrical and structural changes needed to obtain the recertification, a requirement of Miami-Dade County, but had not yet started construction.

“They were well into the review with the engineer about the project,” said Kenneth Direktor, an attorney with the law firm Becker who has represented the association for the last five years.

Condo association meetings were well attended, Direktor said, even throughout the COVID-19 pandemic over Zoom. Direktor described the community as “active and engaged.”

“There are working people, families with kids, people of retirement age,” he said. “Not a particular ethnicity or particular religion. It is a diverse community.”

While several real estate agents with listings in the building declined to comment, their websites showcase an oceanfront building with wide balconies, spacious rooms and slightly dated kitchens and bathrooms, and a tiled pool deck surrounded by manicured hedges. After the collapse, the units on the market were marked “canceled.”

Even real estate experts were shocked by the sight of the building collapsing into itself — especially one that wasn’t particularly old.

“I’ve seen things like this happen before, but never in the United States of America,” said architect Kobi Karp, who has designed notable buildings in South Florida, including the Four Seasons Private Residences in Fort Lauderdale. “It’s a 40-year-old building and we have buildings in Miami from the 1920s. It’s a sad, sad scenario that we may find out could have been prevented.”

Nearly 70% of Champlain Towers South was occupied by primary homeowners and second homeowners, said Romanello by email and text. Units ranged from 1,500-square-foot, two-bedroom apartments to 2,200-square-foot, three-bedroom condos. Penthouse unit 1012, a Compass spokesperson said, sold for $1.1 million in January 2020, according to a real estate agent.

A three-bed, two-bath unit on the ninth floor, about 1,748 square feet, sold on June 17, 2021, for $710,000, according to Zillow.

A four-bed, four-bath penthouse suite, about 4,500 square feet, sold on May 11, 2021, for $2,880,000, according to Zillow. It had floor- to-ceiling windows, marble floors and an oversized wraparound balcony.

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©2021 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Copyright 2021 Tribune Content Agency.

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