Florida Condo Collapse Raises Questions About Building Maintenance

Last week’s collapse of Champlain Towers South—a 12-story and 55-apartment beachfront condominium in Surfside, Florida—has raised questions about the condo’s facility management practices regarding safety and frequent flooding, Business Insider reports.

William Espinoza, a former maintenance manager at the building between 1995 and 2000, told CBS-TV CBS 4 Miami that the condo’s basement garage flooded monthly “about a foot, sometimes two feet.” Espinoza said the sea water would enter the building’s foundations and employees had to use pumps to drain it. He added “that the pumps never could keep up with it so we always had to be replacing pumps.” He alerted building managers about the flooding, but no action was ever taken.

A contractor who visited the building last Tuesday—just 36 hours before it collapsed—told the Miami Herald that the basement garage was flooded and there appeared to be signs of structural damage like cracked concrete and rusted rebar under the pool.

Court records also show a 2015 lawsuit claiming the building’s management did not maintain the exterior wall, which had been damaged by water.

Additionally, a 2018 report from Frank Morabito, an engineer, echo the flooding problem and cracks under the Champlain Towers South parking garage. Morabito had found structural damage elsewhere and recommended US$12 million worth of repairs on October 8, 2018. However, nothing was done until this year when the condo association board, a board of seven volunteers, planned to overhaul the property to meet 40-year recertification requirements, according to the Daily Mail.

The condo board association had sent a letter to its residents before its board meeting in April, according to National Public Radio (NPR). In the letter, Jean Wodnicki, president of the board of directors of the condo association, noted the building’s deterioration and need for the $15 million, an increase since the report was written in 2018.

NPR reports that the remaining owners of the Champlain Towers South condo complex have filed a class-action lawsuit seeking damages that exceed $5 million, The lawsuit alleges that the condo association failed to “secure and safeguard the lives and property” by not disclosing information about “ordinary care, safety measure, oversight” and failing to monitor the building’s stability.

The city of Miami’s building department has requested citywide inspections of all buildings six stories high or taller that are 40 years or older. The new inspection process will require condo associations to provide letters to residents about conditions of their structures and signs of visible distress. The letters will be due in 45 days and need to be signed by a licensed structural engineer, who has designed and inspected at least three buildings with similar characteristics.

Although building collapses are a rare occurrence, a lack of proper structural and exterior maintenance can cause injuries. Ensure you have an exterior maintenance plan in place for your facility.