When Sacred Ground Is Also Multimillion-Dollar Real Estate
What to do with the site of the collapsed condo in Surfside, Fla.? There is no easy way to both honor victims and compensate condo owners.
by Patricia Mazzei
SURFSIDE, Fla. — Unbearable grief absorbed Anabella Levine when Champlain Towers South collapsed in Florida this summer, burying her beloved older brother and three cousins in the rubble of her building while she was away for the night. Identifying some of the remains took an excruciating 18 days.
What she did not expect — what has consumed many of her recent days, even as she struggles with her family’s enormous sorrow — was a fight with the town of Surfside, the beachfront enclave where she and her cousins spent some of their happiest childhood days.
Their fight is over the inevitable question that follows a tragedy that killed 98 people: What should be done with a place where such horror occurred? But unlike in other disasters, the land in Surfside is worth tens of millions of dollars and crucial to some survivors’ financial future.
Ms. Levine and her relatives, as well as other victims’ families, insist that the site must become, at least in part, a memorial to the dead, similar to the 9/11 Memorial in New York. Though the debris at Champlain Towers has long been cleared away, they feel that the ground where so many people died is sacred.
But the parcel at 8777 Collins Avenue is nearly two acres on the beach in South Florida, where waterfront property is scarce, developers drive the economy and the market for luxury condos promising a dream Florida lifestyle seems insatiable. For many of those who lived in the building and lost almost everything they owned, a lucrative real estate deal seems like the best hope for any substantial compensation.
The debate over the parcel’s fate has revealed conflicting interests between victims’ families, who lost people, and survivors, who lost property, in the June 24 collapse. And it has stirred raw feelings in and threatened to divide Surfside, a town of 6,000 with low-slung buildings and a recent history of resisting the aggressive redevelopment that has brought huge gleaming towers to the nearby towns of Miami Beach and Sunny Isles Beach.
“We all knew each other,” Ms. Levine said. “I see all the pictures of the people that died, and they’re all people that I saw in my pool. I know 98 people that died in just one day.”
At issue has been not only what will be built on the property but also how big it can be, as town leaders push to rewrite zoning laws and restrict the size of future construction. In the effort to make Champlain Towers residents financially whole, some see the influence of developers eyeing profits, as is so often the case in Florida.
The judge overseeing the many legal claims over the collapse has said that the sale of the land must happen, and quickly, to give Champlain Towers residents the biggest possible payout. A private bidder is willing to offer $120 million for the property, according to the court-appointed broker handling the real estate deal. Insurance could pay out another $48 million.
With the cause of the collapse still unknown — and no deep-pocketed third party to sue over it, at least not yet — Judge Michael A. Hanzman of the Circuit Court in Miami-Dade County has said the total fund will fall far short of adequate compensation. So many people died that local newspapers are still publishing their obituaries, three months later.
The judge has made it clear that any chance of turning the entire site into a public memorial, as some residents and community members had hoped, runs counter to financial reality. No local government could afford to buy the parcel at market price. Keeping even a portion for a memorial would require persuading a majority of Champlain Towers condo owners to accept a smaller payout — a sensitive request that could pit neighbors against one another.
The city of Miami Beach, which borders Surfside just south of where Champlain Towers South once stood, offered space for a memorial in a nearby park. But Ms. Levine, her relatives and other victims’ families who packed the Surfside Town Hall last week, said only one place will do: the spot where the building fell. A new glitzy high-rise there, they say, would be too much to bear.
Ms. Levine lost her brother, Andres Levine, 26; cousins Moises Rodan and Luis Sadovnic, both 28; and Mr. Sadovnic’s wife, Nicky Langesfeld, 26.
“I had my whole life shattered in a night,” Vicky Btesh, Ms. Levine’s sister-in-law, who became a widow as she was finalizing hotel reservations for her honeymoon, said through sobs. “Help us find a way so that I don’t have to drive by that place and see a building erasing what is the biggest tragedy of my entire life.”
Some residents have felt betrayed by politicians who in the days following the collapse promised lasting help. A few victims’ families have directed much of their anger at town commissioners who dismissed the idea of a land swap with Surfside’s community center, allowing developers to build a new high rise on the community center property and dedicating the Champlain Towers site for a new community center and a memorial.
Ms. Levine and other families suggested that would be a workable compromise. But Eliana R. Salzhauer, one of the commissioners, called the notion “delusional,” in part because the community center site, about five blocks north of Champlain Towers, is at the center of town and key to its quality of life.
During Tuesday’s commission meeting, which drew so many people that some had to watch from the lobby downstairs, the commissioner’s earlier comment enraged many of the families. But Ms. Salzhauer insisted that the ire against town officials was misplaced: Most commissioners want an on-site memorial, she said, but the town cannot afford the land, and the property’s fate is ultimately in the hands of condo owners and the court, not Surfside.
In any case, the community center should be off-limits, a majority of commissioners and a string of residents said.
In an interview, Ms. Salzhauer said lawyers in the Champlain Towers case — many of whom have represented developers in the past — are exploiting the pain of victims’ families and survivors with an eye on future real estate deals.
“This is the perfect storm of conflicts of interest, of South Florida corruption — from the day the building was built,” she said, referring to the turbulent origins of Champlain Towers, during which aggressive developers pushed through plans for the building, adding an extra penthouse story over the initial objections of the town. Investigations over issues such as land subsidence are continuing.
“The real issue is, why did the building collapse? It may turn out to be unbuildable. And should we be developing somewhere where it’s not sustainable in the first place?”
A big development proposed in town a few years ago caused such backlash that voters ousted most of the commissioners and approved rules to limit the sale of public land. The new commission has pursued a more restrictive zoning code, which drew little attention until it became evident that the changes could lower the value of the Champlain Towers land. This month, commissioners agreed to allow the same size development on the site as the building that fell.
Victims’ families and survivors have trudged to the Town Hall, attended court hearings on Zoom and commiserated in WhatsApp chats to navigate their new reality of anguish and displacement. Even the return of their recovered personal items seems far-off: The Miami-Dade Police Department will first need to decontaminate everything, from photos to jewelry to clothing, to get rid of asbestos — a process that could cost millions of dollars.
Many of those who lost their homes to the collapse still do not know where, when it is all over, they will be living. Most would like to come home. But in the end, it may be too expensive.
