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I doubt either the HOA or the condo owners would have been amicable to a costly special a$$essment for restoration. Everyone is a good quarterback after the f

I doubt either the HOA or the condo owners would have been amicable to a costly special a$$essment for restoration. Everyone is a good quarterback after the fact.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Indeed. The condo members could have easily been the ones fighting action. My grandparents used to own a condo where the people there were unwilling to spend money on anything. What would have been a couple hundred dollar special assessment morphed into a several thousand one very quickly multiple times, as nobody was willing to spend the money fixing things.
shagie 5y ago
That was covered apparently in April. https://www.wsj.com/articles/miami-area-building-collapse-condo-board-president-warned-of-need-for-repairs-in-april-letter-11624930495 https://www.wsj.com/articles/miami-area-building-collapse-co... > The president of the Champlain South Towers condo association told residents in April their building was in desperate disrepair and urged them to pay the $15 million in assessments needed to fix structural problems, in a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. > ... > The purpose of the letter, dated April 9, 2021, was to explain to residents the worthiness of the construction projects for the 40-year-old building ahead of the following week’s meeting about a proposed special assessment of $15 million to be paid by residents.
- in_cahoots 5y ago
  Even if they had given the money, there’s no way the work would have been completed (or started, most likely) before the collapse. If anyone knew that the building was in danger of structural failure it should have been condemned, not renovated with residents in place.
  - shagie 5y ago
    In the "everything's rosy" universe where things go the right way, they would have had an engineer come out and start looking and then say "everyone get out." Unfortunately, this isn't the "everything's rosy" universe. --- That money... its about $120k/unit in the condo. You can get a condo on Miami Beach for $225k. Some digging on Zillow suggests that a condo built within the last 20 years will get you into the $450k range without difficulty and very easy to go beyond that. There are other things coming to light too... like they added a penthouse ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/miami-area-condo-that-collapsed-skirted-local-codes-with-penthouse-11624902548 https://www.wsj.com/articles/miami-area-condo-that-collapsed... ) > The tower’s rooftop apartments would have added significant weight but they were accounted for in the revised design, said Roberto Leon, a professor of construction engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, who reviewed the building plans. > The structural plans show that the size of the columns and reinforcements would have been typical for that time, and the roof would have had limited ability to redistribute the building’s load if one of the columns were to fail, he said. > That could mean a failure in one column could bring down an entire structure, which could have been what occurred with this building, Mr. Leon said.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      It's weird. People want destiny/karma to be real so they blame a random pool worker even when the truth isn't incompatible with destiny/karma. This is not an example of a random collapse. It is an example of what happens when you do absolutely everything wrong.

I doubt either the HOA or the condo owners would have been amicable to a costly special a$$essment for restoration. Everyone is a good quarterback after the fact.

MattGaiser 5y ago

Indeed. The condo members could have easily been the ones fighting action. My grandparents used to own a condo where the people there were unwilling to spend money on anything. What would have been a couple hundred dollar special assessment morphed into a several thousand one very quickly multiple times, as nobody was willing to spend the money fixing things.

shagie 5y ago

That was covered apparently in April. https://www.wsj.com/articles/miami-area-building-collapse-condo-board-president-warned-of-need-for-repairs-in-april-letter-11624930495 https://www.wsj.com/articles/miami-area-building-collapse-co... > The president of the Champlain South Towers condo association told residents in April their building was in desperate disrepair and urged them to pay the $15 million in assessments needed to fix structural problems, in a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. > ... > The purpose of the letter, dated April 9, 2021, was to explain to residents the worthiness of the construction projects for the 40-year-old building ahead of the following week’s meeting about a proposed special assessment of $15 million to be paid by residents.

in_cahoots 5y ago
Even if they had given the money, there’s no way the work would have been completed (or started, most likely) before the collapse. If anyone knew that the building was in danger of structural failure it should have been condemned, not renovated with residents in place.
- shagie 5y ago
  In the "everything's rosy" universe where things go the right way, they would have had an engineer come out and start looking and then say "everyone get out." Unfortunately, this isn't the "everything's rosy" universe. --- That money... its about $120k/unit in the condo. You can get a condo on Miami Beach for $225k. Some digging on Zillow suggests that a condo built within the last 20 years will get you into the $450k range without difficulty and very easy to go beyond that. There are other things coming to light too... like they added a penthouse ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/miami-area-condo-that-collapsed-skirted-local-codes-with-penthouse-11624902548 https://www.wsj.com/articles/miami-area-condo-that-collapsed... ) > The tower’s rooftop apartments would have added significant weight but they were accounted for in the revised design, said Roberto Leon, a professor of construction engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, who reviewed the building plans. > The structural plans show that the size of the columns and reinforcements would have been typical for that time, and the roof would have had limited ability to redistribute the building’s load if one of the columns were to fail, he said. > That could mean a failure in one column could bring down an entire structure, which could have been what occurred with this building, Mr. Leon said.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    It's weird. People want destiny/karma to be real so they blame a random pool worker even when the truth isn't incompatible with destiny/karma. This is not an example of a random collapse. It is an example of what happens when you do absolutely everything wrong.