Did Surfside building official mishandle engineer’s report on doomed condo? Experts think so
Jay Weaver, Aaron Leibowitz, and Sarah Blaskey, Miami Herald
MIAMI — When Surfside’s top building official received an engineer’s report three years ago pointing out “major structural damage” to a concrete slab and “abundant” deterioration of garage columns supporting a condo tower, Miami-Dade County’s building code spelled out a course of action.
© David Santiago/Miami Herald/TNS From left, Maria Fernanda Martinez and Mariana Cordeiro comfort each other while they look at the rubble at the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside, Florida, on June 25, 2021.
It’s one that apparently wasn’t pursued.
Under that law, Rosendo Prieto had a duty to contact the engineering consultant and inspect problems to see if the Champlain Towers South condo was at risk of endangering residents, according to construction experts interviewed by the Miami Herald. They believe the report noted enough significant structural concerns — severe concrete cracking in the pool deck and garage areas and waterproofing failures — to meet the code’s “presumed to be unsafe” standard and trigger a follow-up examination.
© David Santiago/Miami Herald/TNS Rubble is seen at the Champlain Towers South Condo in Surfside, Florida, on June 25, 2021.
Instead, after he was sent a Morabito Consultants’ engineering report by a Champlain condo association member, Prieto met with the board after reviewing the document and assured members that “it appears the building is in very good shape,” according to minutes of a Nov. 15, 2018, board meeting.
If that’s all that happened, experts say Prieto’s actions fell far short of the steps called for in county codes.
Gregg Schlesinger, a Fort Lauderdale contractor and attorney who specializes in construction cases, said building officials are obligated to take action when informed of serious structural problems — not just talk to a condo board.
“I think when you see something like this, you should report it,” Schlesinger said. “It should be looked at.
“When is something unsafe? It’s unsafe when someone knew or should have known of the potential of it collapsing, or deteriorating in such a state where there is a chance of it collapsing,” he said.
About half of the 12-story Champlain Towers South building collapsed June 24 in what is feared to be the worst building failure in U.S. history, leaving at least 78 people dead and dozens more still missing. Several structural engineers, after evaluating public records, condo plans and video footage of the collapse, have told the Herald that they suspect the 136-unit tower on Collins Avenue began to fall after the pool deck caved into the parking garage, which in turn undermined the foundation and triggered the collapse of the middle and oceanfront sections of the building.
John Pistorino, who has worked as an engineer in Miami for 50 years and sits on the state’s engineering board, said that he could not comment specifically on Prieto’s actions because his case was likely to come under scrutiny.
But, speaking generally, Pistorino said that when a building official learns about severe structural problems such as those outlined in Morabito’s report — which are fairly common in an oceanfront property — further inspection would be required for both legal and professional reasons under the Miami-Dade building code, which is among the toughest in the state of Florida.
“In my experience, when we come across a report that is problematic like this one, the building official can get another opinion,” Pistorino said.
It is possible that Surfside’s building official may have taken other actions, such as meeting with Morabito or inspecting the condo tower’s structural problems, that are not reflected in the town’s list of public records posted on its website or in the condo association’s records made public to date. The Herald has asked for all records pertaining to Prieto’s correspondence and actions involving Champlain Towers South, but has not yet received them from the town.
Prieto, a veteran building official who left Surfside last year, also did not respond to a request for comment Thursday and his attorney could not be reached. But three days after the condo’s collapse, he told the Herald that if there had ever been any major concerns with the condition of Champlain Towers South, “they would have been addressed right away.”
If issues were brought to his attention, Prieto said, he would have required an engineer to examine them further. Prieto is a licensed building code administrator, inspector and plans examiner, according to state records, but he is not an engineer himself.
At the time, Prieto told the Herald he wasn’t aware of the 2018 report by engineer Frank Morabito that warned of major structural damage at Champlain Towers South. That appears to conflict with the meeting of the condo board that November, where minutes show he made the “good shape” comment.
Public records also show that Prieto later commented in an email about attending the board’s meeting and praising its efforts to address the structural issues before the start of an official 40-year recertification process.
The condo building, completed in 1981, was facing a formal structural, mechanical and electrical review, as required under Miami-Dade’s building code. Morabito’s nine-page report was an initial summary of his structural findings for the board. The estimated initial cost of repairs was heavy — $9 million — a price tag that caused dissension among board members and delayed the repairs almost three years.
Although the Morabito report did not raise an obvious red flag that the building was “unsafe” or at risk of falling down, the firm urged Champlain’s condo board to replace and repair the deteriorating structural areas in a “timely fashion” because the concrete problems could “expand exponentially.”
Under Miami-Dade County’s building code, “a building, or part thereof, shall be presumed to be unsafe if ... there is a deterioration of the structure or structural parts.” The ordinance further states that “the Building Official, on his own initiative or as a result of reports by others, shall examine or cause to be examined every building or structure appearing or reported to be unsafe.”
A half-dozen engineers and legal experts contacted by the Herald said that given the conditions cited in the Morabito report, Surfside’s building official should have taken several additional steps to address the fundamental safety issue.
He could have spoken with Morabito about the findings in his report to gain a better understanding of the depth of the structural problems at the Champlain Towers South condo. Or, he could have inspected the building, especially the areas of grave concern, such as the pool deck area, where a “major error” was found because it lacked proper sloping and waterproofing, generating persistent leaks into the concrete slab beneath it. Or, he could have examined the “abundant cracking and spalling” found in the concrete garage columns because of deteriorating reinforced steel rods known as rebar that were expanding and causing the concrete to crumble. Records released to date don’t reflect any of that was done.
On the extreme end, the building official has the authority to deem the building an unsafe structure and order an evacuation. Then, if the official finds the building is indeed unsafe, he can order repairs to be made and refer the case to the county’s Unsafe Structures Board, which can take further action, including ordering demolition.
Pistorino, the Miami engineer and author of the county’s 40-year recertification policy, said it is often the case that a town or city’s building official doesn’t have the expertise to determine whether a building is facing imminent danger of falling down, so it’s imperative to retain a structural engineer.
“A building official would normally hire an independent consultant to look at the structure,” Pistorino said. “That seems to be a good practice or good procedure.”
When Morabito noted that 8% of the garage and plaza “slabs have experienced concrete deterioration,” he was indicating damage to a “major structural element” of the building, said Abieyuwa Aghayere, professor of engineering at Drexel University and an expert in concrete structures. Still, Aghayere said from an engineering perspective, whether that deterioration would have made the building unsafe depends on the extent of the damage.
“It would depend on how widespread the deterioration is,” Aghayere said. “If you have spalling at one spot, the structure is strong enough to redistribute load.”
Aghayere said Morabito would not have necessarily been able to see the extent of damage to the slab because the pool deck was covered in tiles. He also said that sometimes concrete can look fine while deteriorating at a chemical level — in other words, it would be weaker than it should be.
“It would have been helpful if he (Morabito) took core samples and tested them,” Aghayere said.
In 2020, Morabito’s team took core samples of the pool deck, noting the depth of the slab but not the strength of the concrete or its chloride levels — tests that Aghayere said would be necessary to be sure about the strength of the slab.
Schlesinger, the Fort Lauderdale contractor and attorney, said the building industry’s laws are replete with gray areas and “overlapping powers” among inspectors, engineers, contractors and architects, which allows them all to “point to other people” when things go wrong. But ultimately, Schlesinger said, “they’re all responsible.”
Schlesinger said Morabito, the engineer, also arguably had a legal and ethical duty to notify Prieto about the firm’s 2018 structural assessment of the property, although he acknowledged there would likely be an “even split” among experts on that question.
“Does this report say there was something structurally unsafe? I believe it does,” Schlesinger said.
Generally, engineers have little incentive to flag problems for government authorities, he said — especially before 40-year recertifications are due.
Morabito’s firm was first hired in 2018 to inspect Champlain Towers South, then again in 2020 to usher the building through its 40-year inspection process after repair costs had ballooned from $9 million to $15 million. Morabito, with offices in Maryland and Florida, did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement following the Surfside building’s collapse, the Morabito firm defended its actions but also conceded the condo tower had serious structural problems, saying that “our report detailed significant cracks and breaks in the concrete, which required repairs to ensure the safety of the residents and the public.”
Then, it issued another statement: “Morabito Consultants did their job, just as they have done for nearly four decades — providing expert structural engineering counsel and services. And they will continue to work with the investigating authorities to understand why this structure failed, so that such a catastrophic event can never happen again.”
So far, more than a dozen individual and class-action lawsuits have been filed against Champlain Towers South’s condo association, Morabito’s engineering firm and others in Miami-Dade Circuit Court; the condo board itself has a total of $48 million in insurance coverage for property and personal injury claims.
Lawyers representing the condo association, Ken Direktor and Donna Berger, did not respond to a request for comment. But soon after the tower’s collapse, they provided the town of Surfside with the minutes of the mid-November 2018 condo board meeting in which Prieto said the building appeared in good shape and asked officials to post the document on their government website. Other records show that as time passed, some condo board members grew frustrated over not only the lack of progress on the structural fixes but also the escalating costs. Despite its early start, the condo board’s formal plans for the 40-year recertification under Morabito’s direction were only getting underway just as the building collapsed, records show.
From a legal standpoint, holding governments and building officials accountable for construction failures is a challenge. Building officials have sovereign immunity, making it more difficult to hold them liable. And Florida law caps government agencies’ liability in lawsuits at $200,000, requiring approval from the state Legislature and the governor to go above that amount.
But the families of victims of the Champlain Towers South condo collapse are already preparing to pin some responsibility on the town. Last week, lawyers for the estate of Antonio and Gladys Lozano — who were married for 59 years before they were killed in the collapse — put Surfside officials on notice of a potential lawsuit, as required by state law.
The two-page letter points explicitly to Prieto’s failure to act on the 2018 engineer’s report, and notes that Prieto brushed off another email from a Champlain Towers South board member in January 2019 raising concerns about construction at the condo tower next door in Miami Beach.
“The Town of Surfside had actual knowledge of the deplorable conditions and failed to take action,” the letter says. “Employees and officials were negligent for failing to protect the residents, tenants, and owners of the building.”
