Posted on 04/20/2026 10:55:34 AM PDT by Miami Rebel
In 2021, the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside, Fla., killed 98 people. Today, the luxury real estate company that is redeveloping the site has yet to sell a single unit inside its planned project, according to The Real Deal.
Damac Properties, a Dubai-based developer, paid $120 million for the 1.8-acre property in 2022 — about one year after the former structure tragically collapsed. The company completed the purchase as the sole bidder in a court-ordered auction of the property, with proceeds going towards the former unit owners, including families of the victims.
However, the sale and redevelopment became controversial as many pushed for a memorial on the site to honor those lost in the incident, The Real Deal reports. Despite the pushback, Damac unveiled a 12-story, “ultra-luxury boutique oceanfront condominium” called the Delmore in January 2025, per a press release. Today, the property's website boasts “37 mansions in the sky inspired by the internationally acclaimed Zaha Hadid Architects.”
But according to a senior vice president of development at Damac, no contracts have been signed at the project. “The initial soft launch we did in January 2025 was premature,” Jeffrey Rossely tells The Real Deal. “We discussed that with the sales team. We thought we would have the sales gallery finished in February [2025]. We also thought the market would pick up after the inauguration of the President.”
The units start at $15 million, but the average falls between $35 and $40 million, with penthouses that could exceed $150 million, Rossely said.
The executive said they have been close to completing several deals, but all have fallen through. One attempt included contracts with a buyer for more than $200 million worth of units, but Damac questioned “the source of funding” and decided not to follow through.
(Excerpt) Read more at people.com ...
WAS THE SITE UNSTABLE OR THE CONSTRUCTION?
1% net worth is $13.7m. $15m real estate is 1% range. Very rarefied territory. Definitely Freeper country, but what Freeper would feel comfortable in Spanish-speaking Miami?
My sprawling waterfront mansion a little further up the Atlantic coast, cost millions less, has a great view, and I don’t live in a building needing an elevator. Winning.
“Proper maintenance would have prevented it well.”
indeed ... but the condo owners kept voting to cheap-out on the necessary VERY EXPENSIVE maintenance ... as a consequence a new Florida law was just put into effect that MANDATES such necessary maintenance ... as a consequence of that mandate, HO fees have necessarily gone through the roof, resulting in abandonment of units, loss of all equity, and a dead market for seaside condo units in Florida ... turns out, it was a very bad idea to build multistory concrete and steel skyscrapers a few feet from the ocean shore where you can dig down by hand and hit corrosive saltwater that saturates the ground around the building pylons ...
What I have read is that the whole area is just waiting to eventually collapse. I assume this site is no different. But I’m no geologist.
“They’re building on the same unstable site?”
that site is no different than the sites all along the southeastern shores of florida ...
the owners of these particular condos kept voting to cheap-out on the necessary VERY EXPENSIVE maintenance of building a concrete and steel skyscraper a few feet from the ocean shore on ground saturated with highly corrosive salt water ... as a consequence a new Florida law was just put into effect that MANDATES such necessary maintenance ... as a consequence of that mandate, HO fees have necessarily gone through the roof, resulting in abandonment of units, loss of all equity, and a dead market for seaside condo units in Florida ...
turns out, it was a very bad idea to build multistory concrete and steel skyscrapers a few feet from the ocean shore where you can dig down by hand and hit highly corrosive saltwater that saturates the ground around the buildings’ concrete and steel pylons ...
Maybe they’d accept an offer for $500K just to unload a unit ...?
They’ll give them for illegals.
Not salt water, but chlorinated water(fresh) pool was a factor. The concrete was not up to 1970s standards much less 2020s standards. The design as shown on the prints was sub optimal and the build quality was found to be suspect. Everything but the paint on the building was a problem. It has been found that the building was only slightly behind average for the 1970s condos down the street.
Somebody eventually will scoop up those properties for pennies on the dollar.
As one who lived in Florida, I will say Florida is not built to handle so many people. Every 40-50 year nature reminds people of that, like the 1926 Hurricane, or Andrew in 1992. If Andrew hit today, the damage costs probably would have been 10 times what it was in 1992.
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