Condos Approved At Site Of Deadly Surfside Tower Collapse During Contentious Meeting

Dubai-based developer Damac International won approval to move forward with construction of a 12-story condo property on the site of a 2021 condo collapse that killed 98 people in Surfside, Florida.

Commissioners voted 3-2 to approve the plan to build a 52-unit condo building at 8777 Collins Ave. during a contentious town commission meeting that lasted nearly six hours and saw members of the public removed from the room as well as testy exchanges between commissioners. 

The approval comes after months of intense debate about the location and construction of a memorial for the victims of the Champlain Tower South collapse in June 2021. 

Residents and advocates for collapse victims have voiced concerns that the original sanitation plan for the development called for garbage trucks to rumble past the memorial site on 88th Street. They also are worried that the planned construction staging area for the condos at the end of 88th Street would delay the memorial’s construction.

“Try to find a way in putting the loading dock on Collins Avenue. The building right next door did it,” Martin Langesfeld said at the meeting.

Langesfeld's sister, her husband and two cousins were killed in the collapse, according to the Miami Herald.

“Why do they keep hurting us and not try to work together?” he said.

The motion for approval requires Damac to revise its plans to relocate a loading dock and the access point for garbage pickup at the property, along with the condo’s construction staging area, off of 88th Street and onto Collins Avenue. 

Miami-Dade County and the Florida Department of Transportation must approve the changes, but Damac is allowed to move forward with the development if it is unable to secure approval, Commissioner Fred Landsman said at the meeting, according to the Herald. 

Landsman, Surfside Mayor Shlomo Danzinger and Vice Mayor Jeffrey Rose voted to approve the development plan. Commissioners Nelly Velasquez and Marianne Meischeid voted against it.

“DAMAC International is pleased with the decision to approve the site plan application subject to FDOT approval,” Niall McLoughlin, Damac senior vice president of communications, said in a statement emailed to Bisnow Thursday. “We acknowledge the tremendous emotional burden being carried by survivors, relatives and friends of the victims of the collapsed tower and their earnest desire to secure as much of 88th Street as practically possible for the memorial.” 

The development plan approved Wednesday night includes five fewer condos than a June proposal. That proposal had units ranging from 4.5K SF to 15K SF in a building designed by Zaha Hadid Architects with a bifurcated design connected by a first-floor atrium and rooftop pool straddling the center of the building.  

The commission meeting was marked by combative exchanges from both the public and members of the commission, as well as protests outside Surfside Town Hall.

Valasquez was chided for speaking out of order multiple times by the mayor, who has a quarrelsome relationship with the commissioner. Danzinger avoided censure earlier this month over remarks he had made to Valasquez at a commission meeting that some deemed to be racist.

Danzinger also had two members of the public removed for speaking out of turn, and a third Surfside resident was escorted from the meeting after being accused of making hand gestures toward the mayor, according to the local ABC affiliate. Police also had to intervene to break up an argument during a recess between speakers with opposing views, according to the Herald.

Damac has long held that it worked closely with the city and victims’ families on the property’s redevelopment. In an opinion piece published earlier this month in the Herald, McLoughlin said victims’ families are set to receive all the proceeds from the $120M sale of the site.

Damac was the only developer to bid on the property as part of a court-administered auction, and the disbursement of the sale proceeds are part of a $1B settlement approved by a judge last June.  

McLoughlin added that the development firm had worked with the city and FDOT to find a solution for concerns over the proposed location of the property’s garbage facility. Damac has also offered to donate $1.5M to Surfside for the memorial’s construction on 88th Street. 

“The divisiveness surrounding this submission is unfortunate,” McLoughlin said in a statement on Thursday. “We believe the conditional approval of the site plan establishes a new way forward towards better collaboration between all stakeholders.”