Posted on 06/28/2021 8:26:58 AM PDT by rxsid
Developers of doomed Fla. tower were once accused of paying off officials: report
The developers of the Miami condo tower that collapsed were once accused of paying off local officials to get permits for the site — which needed $15 million in repairs just to bring it to code, a new report says.
Building rivals claimed that the partners behind Surfside Champlain Towers South were receiving preferential treatment when it came to getting through the permit system as the site was being built in 1981, the Washington Post said.
Surfside’s developers had contributed to the campaigns of at least two town council members, then demanded that the donations be returned when the allegations surfaced, according to the outlet.
...
All of the principals believed to have been involved in the design and construction of the building are already dead, the outlet said.
The developers behind the project had included Nathan Reiber, a Polish-born Canadian who was also once charged with tax evasion and cited for legal misconduct in Canada, the report said.
Reiber, who died in 2014, had been charged with tax evasion by Canadian authorities in the 1970s when he and his partners were accused of skimming cash from apartment buildings they owned.
They allegedly skimmed tens of thousands of dollars from coin-operated laundry machines in the buildings and pocketed about $120,000 from phony construction checks, the Washington Post said.
...
The following year, the Champlain developers asked two local council members to return their campaign contributions amid accusations that the company had paid off officials to get the permits.
Two other firms — consulting engineers Brieterman Jurado & Associates and architects William M. Friedman & Associates — were involved in the construction of the site.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Interesting...
Interesting...
“If you have one column subjected to spalling, the no. 1 suspect here, it could fail. That one beam could bring down the whole building like a domino effect.”
I don’t know much about construction engineering, but I think that more redundancy than that should be required. A large building that can be brought down by just one failing beam should never have been built.
I'm with you!
You are right.
“In these buildings that are asymmetrical like this one, there is a possibility that if you have one part of the building that collapses, the building does some turning and twisting,” Ehsani said. “In this case, it is possible that a failure any place in this building could cause distortion to the frame of the building and could cause a collapse in any of the areas, not just adjacent [to the failure].”
There was nothing unusual about the lobby and pool area at Champlain Towers South condo, which looked clean and well maintained to a commercial pool contractor who visited the building last Tuesday, just 36 hours before half of the building unexpectedly collapsed. Then, he saw the basement-level garage.
“There was standing water all over the parking garage,” the contractor, who asked not to be named, told the Miami Herald. He noted cracking concrete and severely corroded rebar under the pool.
The contractor visited the condo building last week to put together a bid for a cosmetic restoration of the pool as well as to price out new pool equipment — a small piece of the multimillion-dollar restoration project that just was getting underway at the 40-year-old building.
While he had worked in the industry for decades and had “gone in some scary places,” he said he was struck by the lack of maintenance in the lower level. The amount of water at Champlain Towers seemed so unusual that the contractor mentioned it to a building staff member, Jose, who was showing him around.
“He thought it was waterproofing issues,” the contractor said of the staff member. “I thought to myself, that’s not normal.” He said Jose told him they pumped the pool equipment room so frequently that the building had to replace pump motors every two years, but he never mentioned anything about structural damage or cracks in the concrete above.
The deepest puddle of standing water, according to the contractor, was located around parking spot 78 — an area that building plans show is located directly under the pool deck where in a 2018 inspection report, engineer Frank Morabito had flagged a “major error” in the original design that was allowing water intrusion and causing serious damage to the structural concrete slabs below.
He did not photograph that standing water because he was there to examine the pool and what was underneath it.
In the pool equipment room, located on the south side of the underground garage, the contractor saw another problem — exposed and corroding rebar in the concrete slab overhead (Seen below). He snapped some pictures and sent them to his supervisor along with a note expressing concern that the job might be a bit more complicated than expected. He worried they would have to remove pool pipes to allow concrete restoration experts access to repair the slabs.
The building caved in two days later, before they had time to complete their bid.
“I wonder if this was going on in other parts of the building and caused this collapse,” he said.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article252421658.html
I don’t know much about construction engineering, but I think that more redundancy than that should be required. A large building that can be brought down by just one failing beam should never have been built.
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That misses the entire point.
There wasn't just a single beam that had corrosion/structural problems. There was cracked/exposed/corroded concrete and rebar in numerous places throughout the building.
In fact, the report done by the engineer in 2018, he mentions he saw about 1/2 of the units as a sample. He clearly didn't see 100% of the building. And, neither did the pool contractor who was there to replace the pool equipment 2 days prior to the collapse. He saw yet other areas of the building and took some photos seen above.
It's highly likely, if an engineer had done a 100% inspection in the days/weeks leading to the disaster, they would have had pages of photos and red flagged support structures located throughout the building.
In particular, in the lower levels in and around the pool deck area which is exactly where the video shows this collapse started.
Even a bit of common sense says it most likely was a single beam that finally gave way, but half a dozen or more that were in bad shape as well, gave way a split second later since they couldn't hold the additional load. So, just like that engineer said...a domino effect.
Wow, that number 78 parking spot appears to be right near where the rescue guy with the dog is in the pic in post 57 above. That appears to be the cave in area.
“.... Weaponized Autists social media. ....”
Well that’s a definitive source !
Sure does. Pieces of this tragic puzzle are coming together.
Global warming, my arse.
3 buildings to the right is the sister building Champlain Towers North. They are identical except North was built one year later.
2 buildings to right is Champlain Tower East.
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