Condos Are in Uncharted Territory
The cracks in the concrete suddenly feel like chasms. As South Florida reels from the tragedy in Surfside, condo owners across the region—and as far away as New York and California—are looking with new, worried eyes at rust, water damage, and spalling, a word we all learned this week. Anxiety is in the air at Champlain Towers North, the mirror image of the collapsed building, and at Maison Grande in Miami Beach. Surfside residents have called up the town’s mayor to ask if buildings on the ocean are safe, and the mayor of Miami-Dade County has ordered emergency audits of all older apartment buildings under the county’s jurisdiction.
There’s a kind of paradox in the wake of the collapse at Surfside, which seems likely to become the deadliest building accident in U.S. history. On the one hand, a tragedy of this magnitude seems to demand reform. On the other, it is so rare an occurrence that it seems unwise to draw sweeping conclusions.
Hopefully, the 2018 engineer’s report that warned of “major structural damage” to be dealt with in the “near future” does not ring any bells for most apartment owners. But the foot-dragging that followed that report, as the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association struggled to rally owners to pony up for a $15 million repair project? That speaks to a fundamental failure of condo governance—deferred maintenance and trouble raising money—that goes far beyond South Florida.
