![]() The median rent is about $2,000 median household income is $69,000 and median home value is $626,000, July 2019 census records say.ĬNN’s Curt Devine, Jim Sciutto, Amanda Watts, Hannah Sarisohn and Rosa Flores contributed to this report. More about Surfside: The town sits on a barrier island between the Biscayne Bay and Atlantic Ocean. In 2018, Surfside was home to about 2,500 Orthodox Jewish residents, according to The Times of Israel, and there are at least five synagogues within a short drive of Champlain Towers. About 54% residents are non-Hispanic White, while 45% identify as Latino or Hispanic, according to the US Census Bureau. ![]() Who lives in Surfside: The population is 5,700. Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner reportedly relocated to a nearby residence earlier this year. The tower sits among several tony condominium and hotel towers, including the Four Seasons Hotel at The Surf Club. It’s located along the Atlantic Way, about a block from North Beach Oceanside Park and sandwiched between Bal Harbour to the north and Miami Beach to the south. What’s nearby: Champlain Towers South is one of three buildings (there are also east and north towers) that host more than 300 collective residences. It was the attorney’s understanding the engineer was helping the city investigate the collapse, he said. Work was being done to meet “40-year standards,” a strengthening of the building code – regarding updates and improvements – enacted following Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Miami-Dade County Commissioner Sally Heyman said.Īn engineer who inspected the building determined it needed repairs, but the only repair underway was the replacement of the roof, Direktor said. Ongoing construction: At the time of the collapse, the building was undergoing work on its concrete roof, Burkett said, but it’s unclear whether the work was a factor in the collapse. Over the last several months, the building has undergone “thorough engineering inspections” in preparation for its 40-year certification, said Kenneth Direktor, an attorney for the condo tower residents’ association, and “nothing like this was foreseeable.” While the sinking alone likely would not cause the tower’s collapse, it could be a contributing factor because “if one part of the building moves with respect to the other, that could cause some tension and cracks,” Wdowinski said. Buildings in nearby western Miami Beach, which was built on reclaimed wetlands, were moving at higher rates, “so we didn’t think it was something unusual,” he said. Sinking was unique to the area of Champlain Towers South, not surrounding buildings, he said. Inspection: A study last year showed signs the building was sinking at a rate of about 2 millimeters a year between 19, said Shimon Wdowinski, a professor with Florida International University’s Institute of Environment. Other amenities: In addition to housing, the building offered terraces, a club room, tennis courts, fitness center, sauna, private beach, heated swimming pool, underground parking deck and 24-hour security. ![]() A four-bedroom penthouse spanning more than 4,500 square feet sold for almost $2.9 million earlier this year. A murky video looking into the basement-level garage of the Champlain Towers South condo, recorded from the street by a tourist just minutes before the 12-story building caved in, is more. “So from the beginning, the original structural design provided low margins of safety.Price: Most condos range from $295,000 (for a one-bedroom in March 2020) to $980,000 (for a three-bedroom a year later), real estate records indicate. The pool deck plan “fell well short of the applicable building code,” Bell told NIST’s National Construction Safety Team Advisory Committee. Scientists have also documented saltwater seeping into the building’s underground foundation, and that the building had slowly sunk in the 1990s.īut the preliminary analysis outlined Thursday showed that investigators consider the pool deck’s many defects as a leading hypothesis - among about two dozen - of what led a large section of the 12-story residential building to suddenly crumple in the middle of the night. Champlain Towers South, built on a barrier island, suffered from faulty construction and structural damage, including corrosion beyond the pool deck, according to an engineer that assessed the building three years before the collapse. Whether those deficiencies directly caused the Jcollapse is not yet clear (NIST’s final report on the cause isn’t expected until May 2025). Design and construction flaws, along with corrosion, went unaddressed for years before the collapse. “The conditions that existed in the pool deck slab at that time represented a serious safety concern for the building,” Glenn Bell, a lead investigator for the National Institute for Standards and Technology, said in a public meeting at the agency’s Maryland headquarters.
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