The laws passed in the aftermath of the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside four years ago have been painful for condominium owners who are having to pay for mandatory inspections and financial reserves. These new rules have wreaked havoc in the condo market, with sales in Miami-Dade falling by 25% from last May, according to the Miami Association of Realtors.
These measures — as harsh as they were — were probably worth it, based on recent findings by the investigators tasked with figuring out what happened on June 24, 2021. In an update released Monday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) found that shoddy construction is what most likely caused the 40-year-old building to fall, the Herald reported. NIST’s final report is expected in 2026.
Investigators are focusing on three “higher-likelihood” hypotheses, each stemming from construction flaws. For example, the failure of a slab-column connection in the pool deck, where building code standards were not met, might have triggered the collapse, and heavy planters and pavers added to the deck increased the load on a support system “that was already functionally and structurally inadequate,” according to the NIST report…